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A LOITERER IN PARIS 




i'hoto Alinati 



NOTRE-r>A;ME: THE GREAT PORTAIL. 



A LOITERER IN 
PARIS 



BY 

HELEN W. HENDERSON 

AUTHOR OP "A LOITERER IN NEW YORK," "A LOITERER 
IN NEW ENGLAND," "THE ART TREASURES OF 
WASHINGTON," ETC. 




NEW XfiJP YORK 
GEORGE PL DORAN COMPANY 



-^6^ 






COPYRIGHT, 1921, 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



NOV 23 1921 



g)CI.A627858 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA 



'Vi. 



TO MY FRIEND 

TRUMAN H. BARTLETT 



NOTE 

This book makes no pretention to be a guide to 
Paris. It selects, rather, some few aspects of Paris 
which time has rendered more or less immutable in 
the face of a changing world, and aims to reveal to 
the eclectic less obvious beauties — to indicate, 
merely, the hidden wealth encompassed by those 
monuments of remoter time. 

The great fascination of Paris lies in its adapt- 
ability, its responsiveness, its resource. One finds 
there just what one seeks. The subject, therefore, 
however viewed, is vast; the best that one could do 
was to follow a chosen thread of the many that 
weave together in the elaborate pattern. The plan 
was for one book, not volumes. 

Helen W. Henderson. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Shifting Sands 21 

II The Birth Place 31 

III The Romans in Lutetia 52 

IV Vistas: Under the Cathedral ... 69 
V The Ancient Cite 89 

VI Notre-Dame :'.10 

VII Inside the Cathedral 149 

VIII The Basilica OF Clovis: Sainte-Genevieve 164 
IX The Basilica of Childebert: Saint-Ger- 

main-des-Pres 185 

X Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois .... 217 

XI Transition Churches 239 

XII The Turning-Point : Saint-Martin-des- 

Champs 260 

XIII Dagobert's Basilica : Saint-Denis . . 269 

XIV The Sainte-Chapelle 291 

XV Saint-Denis: The Tombs 314 

XVI Renaissance : Francois I 355 

XVII The Louvre of Lescot and Goujon . . 377 
xi 



Xll 

CHAPTER 

XVIII 

XIX 

XX 

XXI 

XXII 

XXIII 

XXIV 



CONTENTS 

The Louvre : Development and Achieve 
MENT 

Foundations of the Museum . 

The Marais: Henri IV 

Carnavalet 

The Luxembourg : Marie de Medicis 
Scattered Treasures . , . . 



Et 



PUIS APRESr 



Schedule for Two Weeks in Paris 
Schedule for One Week in Paris 
Index 



410 
431 
447 
474 
485 
510 
539 
552 
558 
559 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Notrc-Dcamc : the Great Portail . . . Frontispiece 

PAGB 

Henri IV on the Pont-Neuf 39 

Le Christ du Parlement. From the Grand Chainhre 

of tlie Palais du Justice. Now in the Louvre . 45 
Antique Statue of Julian the Apostate Now in 

Musee de Cluny 55 

The Arcature Suspended Between the Towers. De- 
tail, Notre-Dame 115 

Monsters Amongst tlie Towers. Notre-Dame . 125 
Death of the Virgin. Apse of Notre-Dame . . 126 
Satan and tlie Devils. Detail from Voussoir of 

the Porte du Jugcment, Notre-Dame . . .135 
La Porte de la Vierge. Notre-Dame . . . 136 
Saint-Denis Between two Angels and Constantin. 

Detail from Porte de la Vierge, Notre-Dame . 141 
Detail from the Porte de la Vierge. Notre-Dame . 142 
Tympanum of the Porte Sainte-Anne, Xllth and 

'Xlllth Centuries. Notre-Dame . . . 142 
Gothic Statue of the Virgin, XlVth Century. In- 
terior Notre-Dame 157 

Slaughter of the Innocents and Flight Into Egypt. 

Xillth Century Sculpture. Notre-Dame . . 157 
The Ambulatory. Notre-Dame . . . .158 
Statue of Sainte-Genevieve. Xlllth Century. 

From Ancient Eglise Sainte-Genevieve. Louvre 167 
xiii 



xiv ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAQR 

Chimeras: Roman Epoch. From Old Abbey of 

Sainte-Genevieve. Louvre 175 

Marble Capital Representing Daniel in the Lions' 
Den, From Ancient Basilica of Sainte-Genevieve, 
Louvre . . . ' 176 

Pedestal and Group of Four Figures : by Germain 

Pilon. From Church of Sainte-Genevieve. Louvre 176 

Childebert, Xlllth Century Statue. From Abbey 

of Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Louvre , . . 187 

Saint-Germain-des-Pres . , , , , , 197 

Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois : Under the Porch . , 219 

The Descent from the Cross: by Jean Goujon. 
From Rood-loft of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois. 
Louvre 220 

The Martyrdom of Saint-Denis : Attributed to Jean 

Malouel, about 14^00, Louvre , , , ,271 

Interior of Cathedral of Saint-Denis: Ascent to Am- 
bulatory and Chapels 271 

Interior of Cathedral of Saint-Denis : Transept with 

Tomb of Fran9ois I and Claude de France . 272 

La Naumachie: Pare Monceau. Constructed from 

Ruins of Chapelle des Valois at Saint-Denis , 281 

Lower Chapel : Sainte-Chapelle . , . , 293 

Our Mother of Sorrows. From Sainte-Chapelle. 

Louvre 293 

Interior of the Upper Chapel. Sainte-Chapelle . 294 

Dagobert's Tomb. Saint-Denis, To the Right: 
Vllth Century Statue of the Virgin from Saint- 
Martin-des-Champs 327 

Tomb of Louis d'Orleans and Valentine de Milan, 

Saint-Denis 333 

Recumbent Figures of Louis and Marguerite d'Ar- 

tois. Saint-Denis 333 



ILLUSTRATIONS xv 

PAGE 

Tomb of Louis XII and Anne de Brctagne : by Jean 

Juste of Tours. Saint-Denis .... 334 
Detail from the Tomb of Fran9ois I and Claude de 

France. Saint-Denis 334; 

Reclining Statues of Henri II and Catherine de 

Medicis : by Germain Pilon. Saint-Denis . . 347 
Urn Made to Contain the Heart of Fran9ois I : by 

Pierre Bontcmps. From Abbey of Hautes- 

Bruyercs. Now at Saint-Denis .... 347 
Recumbent Figures of Henri II and Catherine de 

Medicis : by Germain Pilon. Saint-Denis . . 348 
Details from Tomb of Henri II and Catherine de 

Medicis, Saint-Denis 348 

Fran9ois I a Cheval: by Francois Clouet. Louvre 357 
Fran9ois I: by Jeannet Clouet. Louvre . . 358 
Fran9ois I: Bronze Bust, Anonymous. Louvre . 358 
Fa9ade of the Louvre of Pierre Lescot and Jean 

Goujon 379 

Detail of Fa9ade of Lescot and Goujon, Called Pa- 
vilion Henri 11. Louvre 379 

Details of Fa9ade of Lescot and Goujon . . 380 
Portrait of Catherine de Medicis in 1555: Anony- 
mous. Collection of Bibliotheque Nationale . 383 
Bust of Henri II: by Germain Pilon. Louvre . 383 
Fa9ade of Chateau d'Anet : Built by Henri II for 

Diane de Poitiers. Ecole des Beaux-Arts . . 387 
Diane Chasseresse: Group Made for Chateau d'Anet 

by Jean Goujon. Louvre 388 

Detail, Head of Diane: from Group Made for 

Chateau d'Anet by Jean Goujon. Louvre . . 388 
The Fountain of the Innocents: Reconstructed from 

the Original of Lescot and Goujon . . . 389 
Frieze of the Fountaine des Innocents : by Jean 

Goujon, Original Sculpture in the Louvre . 389 



xvi ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Figures from the Fountaine des Innocents : by Jean 

Goujon. From Casts in the Trocadero . . 390 

Caryatids and Tribune: by Jean Goujon. Salle dcs 

Cariatides, Louvre S95 

Medallion from the Salle des Cariatides: by Jean 

Goujon. Louvre 395 

Marguerite de Valois (Called La Reinc Margot), 
Bride of Henri of Navarre: Drawing by Francois 
Clouet. Bibliotheque Nationale .... 403 

Henri of Navarre (Llenri IV) : by Fran9ois Quesnel. 

Bibliotheque Nationale 403 

Catherine de INIedicis : Anonymous Drawing. Biblio- 
theque Nationale 413 

La Reine Margot, about 1573: Anonymous Draw- 
ing. Bibliotheque Nationale ..... 413 

Charles IX, in 1570: Drawing by Fran9ois Clouet. 

Bibliotheque Nationale 417 

Elisabeth d'Autriche, about 1570, Wife of Charles 

IX: Painting by Fran9ois Clouet. In the Louvre 417 

Henri IV: by Barthelemy Prieur. Louvre . . 421 

Louise de Vaudemont, Wife of Henri III: Drawing 

(School of Dumoustier). Louvre . . . 421 

Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel : Percicr and Fon- 
taine, Architects. Built by Napoleon in 1805 . 427 

The Window of Charles IX. Louvre . . . 427 

Fragment of the Palais des Tuilerics : by Philibert 

Delormc. Garden des Tuilerics .... 427 

La Joconde : by Leonardo da Vinci. From the Cab- 
inet of Francois I. Louvre .... 433 

Charite: by Andrea del Sarto, Painted for Fran9ois 

I at Fontainebleau. Louvre .... 434 

Charles I of England : by Anton Van Dyck, Painted 
for Charles L "Cabinet du Roy" 'Louis XIV, 
Louvre 435 



ILLUSTRATIONS xvii 



PAGE 



Laura de' Dianti : by Titian. " Cabinet du Roy " 

Louis XIV. Louvre 436 

Mystic Marriage of Sainte-Catherine : by Correggio. 

" Cabinet du Roy " Louis XIV. Louvre . . 439 

Titian's Entombment, " Cabinet du Roy " Louis 
XIV. Louvre 439 

Portrait of Count Balthazar Castiglione: by 

Raphael. " Cabinet du Roy " Louis XIV. Louvre 443 

Detail from Lcs Noces de Cana: by Paul Veronese. 

Musee Napoleon. Louvre ..... 444 

Saint-Michel and tlie Dragon : by Raphael. " Cab- 
inet du Roy " Louis XIV. Louvre . . . 444 

Jeanne de Bourbon, Wife of Charles V. From the 

Convent of the Celestins. Louvre . . . 449 

Isabeau de Baviere. Detail from her Funeral Monu- 
ment at Saint-Denis 449 

The Three Theological Virtues or the Three Graces, 

with LTrn. Germain Pilon. Louvre . . . 450 

Hotel de Sens, XVth Century 459 

Place des Vosges: Statue of Louis XIII . . . 465 

Place des Vosges : the Arcade ..... 466 

Hotel Sully : Detail from Principal Facade of the 

Court ' 466 

Carnavalet : Court of Honour 477 

Carnavalet: Statue of Louis XIV: by Coyzevox. 

Formerly at the Hotel de Ville .... 478 

Lion: by Jean Goujon. From the Facade of the 

Hotel Carnavalet 478 

The Palais du Luxembourg. Marie de Medicis' 

Palace. Salomon de Brosse, Architect . . 487 

Marriage of Henri IV and Marie de Medicis : by 
Rubens. Decoration for the Palais du Luxem- 
bourg. Louvre ....... 487 



xviii ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Henri IV Confides the Kingdom to Marie de Medicis. 
Decoration for the Palais du Luxembourg. 

Louvre 487 

Chambre a Coucher. Bed Chamber of Marie de 

Medicis. Palais du Luxembourg .... 488 

Detail from Crowning of Marie de Medicis: by 
Rubens. Decoration for the Palais du Luxem- 
bourg. Louvre ....... 488 

Fontaine de Medicis: by de Brosse, Luxembourg 

Garden 489 

Detail, Fontaine de I'Observatoire : by Carpeaux. 

Luxembourg Garden 490 

Fontaine de I'Observatoire: by Carpeaux. Luxem- 
bourg Garden .... ... 490 

Saint-Etienne-du-Mont 511 

Saint-Etienne-du-Mont. Interior, Showing the 

Rood-loft 511 

Hotel de Cluny, XVth Century . . . .521 
Hotel de Cluny : Petite Porte d'Entree . . .522 

Hotel de Cluny: a Window 523 

Tomb of Mazarin : by Coyzevox. Made for the 

Chapel of the Institut de France. Louvre . . 524 
Tomb of Richelieu : by Fran9ois Girardon, After the 

Design of Lcbrun. Sorbonne .... 524 

Val-de-Grace 533 

Merechal Ney: by Rude. Carrefour de I'Observa- 
toire 584 

La Danse: by Carpeaux. Fa9ade of the Opera . 543 
Le Depart: by Rude. Arc du Triomphe de I'Etoile 544 
Le Penseur: by Rodin. Pantheon .... 547 
Lafayette: by Paul W. Bartlett .... 548 



A LOITERER IN PARIS 



A LOITERER IN 
PARIS 

CHAPTER I 
SHIFTING SANDS 

With its fundamental setting practically intact 
Paris is enormously changed. Of this there can 
be no shadow of doubt, " no possible, probable 
shadow of doubt, no possible doubt whatever." 
What will newcomers make of it? I often ask 
myself. How will those who never knew it be- 
fore the Avar relate this hard, brilliant metropolis 
with the romantic, legendary city of Victor Hugo, 
of Balzac, of Du Maurier, of that host of writers 
of fact and fiction who have made it their theme? 

The change is, of course, the result of the war; 
but just what makes it so different is hard to 
define, for the change is subtle and the face of 
things is the same. The boulevards are there, 
thronged as of yore; the cafes ply the same busy 
industry, despite the fabulous rise in the cost of 

21 



22 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

consommations ; the theatres are a succes fou; the 
streets are full of taxis, gliding hither and thither 
with their restless fares, though chauffeurs are be- 
come as capricious as society belles; the Place de 
r Opera presents the same confusion of vehicles 
all tangled up together at tense crises, and all get- 
ting through somehow, in defiance of all the laws 
of traffic. 

The decorative police preserve their same noble 
air of detachment from the vulgar exercise of law 
and order. Handsome and gentle, lithe of figure 
and slender of waist, they seem rather models of 
decorum than agents of discipline, walking in ab- 
straction, the neatly folded cloak thrown over the 
left shoulder, or standing solitary and aloof from 
scenes of violence — calm, disinterested spectators. 
But it is they who are right, France understands 
their function differently. 

The kiosks bloom with the same flowers and 
journals, presided over by the same brisk little 
women, as exquisitely coiffed as ever, with their 
own neat tresses, and guarded over hy the same 
little dogs, who run about in careless freedom, ob- 
livious to social amenities, and with insouciance 
escape sudden death at every turn. 

During this year of quasi-peace, Paris has 
thrown off its shabby aspect, due to five years' 



SHIFTING SANDS 23 

neglect of its toilette; activities long abandoned 
have been resumed, and the women are little by 
little relaxing the strict black of their bereavement 
and brightening up at each change of the season, 
like butterflies emerging from the chrysalis. Yet 
somehow the old charm is missing, the joie de 
vivre lacks, as though the people had looked stern 
reality too fully in the face to be really diverted 
by their pastimes, or to put love into their work. 

Constantly shifting, like a kaleidoscope, nothing 
that one can say of this superficial Paris can have 
more than a fleeting truth. The clearing-house of 
the war, it has been also the theatre of all the 
phases of this new thing called peace. The popu- 
lation since before the armistice has been more 
than doubled, and one-half the dwellers in Paris 
at the moment are provincials, composed of those 
countless refugees from the devastated departe- 
ments. It is this which has made the crise du 
logement more genuine and more acute here than 
in any other city. 

The easy hospitality of Paris was also in a 
sense abused by the tremendous inundation of 
foreigners throughout the war. Accustomed al- 
ways to a large floating population of strangers, 
the city had never before found itself the hostess of 
such armies of semi-hostile guests, guests brought 



24 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

here by military necessity, or commercial interests, 
or for mere considerations of personal safety, not 
at all attracted hither by a love of the city, or a 
predisposition in its favour, or because of its rich 
treasures of history and of art. 

One hesitates to say that Paris had, up to the 
time of the war, been fed on flattery most of its 
life, but at least it is true that it had been accus- 
tomed to a wide and intelligent appreciation. The 
great bulk of tourists who came annually came to 
learn and to admire, and even when, amongst the 
more crass, they couldn't quite succeed, at least 
they bowed to the consensus of opinion, they felt 
the fault to be their own. 

Suddenly all this is withheld. Paris is invaded 
by several millions of homeless persons, whose sole 
preoccupation is food and shelter; and by as many 
more foreign soldiers and " war workers," who look 
upon its streets, its river, its monmnents with cool 
indifference ; its institutions with uncomprehending 
intolerance; its business methods with amused in- 
dulgence. Paris, the beautiful, the mistress of 
poets, of painters, finds herself scrutinized by mul- 
titudes of young, crude, cruel, critical, practical, 
uncompromising eyes, which see in the great cathe- 
drals only space takers, in the old palaces useless 
impedimenta, in the narrow, picturesque streets 



SHIFTING SANDS 25 

traffic obstructors; eyes which pierce the mystery 
of the Seine to the lost power of its waters, the 
romance of old neighbourhoods to defective drain- 
age; eyes, in fine, of foreigners and aliens. Never 
had Paris been looked upon so strangely. 

The Frenchman has fewer illusions about himself 
than most people. In the first shock of a victory 
which seemed to have all the disadvantages of a de- 
feat, these cold, clear-sighted criticisms struck 
home, and he felt himself in need of some readjust- 
ment to a world so different from that of his ances- 
tors, from that of yesterday. Meanwhile every- 
body claimed attention at once. The piper was 
there with his amazing compte — there were debts 
to pay off, pensions to be granted, workmen to be 
satisfied, strikes to be settled, the public to be 
pacified. A certain system of adjustment to the 
state of war had been worked out and was in suc- 
cessful operation, but this peace business upset 
everything again and the work of reconstruction 
was crushing. 

To those of us who have weathered, eye to eye, 
the Incredible conditions of life during the period 
immediately succeeding the cessation of hostilities, 
the old Paris that we knew and loved in time of 
peace and plenty seemed at times to have fairly 
sunk out of sight. It has only been by a strong 



26 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

grip on essential values and enduring fundamen- 
tals that one has been able to hold at all to the 
old and true idea of the Gallic city — that one has 
not been swept off one's feet by the tide of ma- 
terial considerations that have from time to time 
threatened to engulf us. 

At first, though the riding was uncommonly 
rough and the most that one could do was to hold 
hard while things in general went by the board, 
one had faith that a little patience and courage 
would see one through what was merely a tempo- 
rary and provisional state of things in France, not 
at all surprising after so great a calamity. The 
American press invented a phrase in which one 
took much comfort — that Europe would " come 
back," as a delirious patient might return to con- 
sciousness or a madman regain his senses. 

One thought in one's finite way of a transition 
period, or a period of reconstruction, as a matter 
of months merely — one was frantically occupied 
with the hand-to-hand struggle for daily exis- 
tence, personal existence — and in a larger way 
one saw Paris in the throes of a superhuman ef- 
fort to right itself after release from years de- 
voted exclusively to the absorbing passion of war. 
All courses had been turned to swell the one great 
torrent of resistance. What one now saw was the 



SHIFTING SANDS 27 

bending back of those currents into normal chan- 
nels, the enormous travail multiplied by the fa- 
tigue of the nation — the vague de paresse of which 
we heard so much. 

Of the international politics one cannot pretend 
either a close observation or a profound under- 
standing; but it is certain that the country stood 
more than once upon the brink of revolution and 
that its leaders dreaded a repetition of the hor- 
rors which succeeded the war of '70, and pursued 
a yielding policy of mingled tact and propitiation, 
preferring to avert by excessive concession, rather 
than to attempt to crush by force, and perhaps 
thereby precipitate, an all too menacing disaster. 

To each country its difficulties. And besides the 
debt of gratitude which the nation owed to the 
army, to a man, there was also the knowledge (as 
who indeed does not know?) of the limits to which 
the Gallic temperament will go when it has 
reached the point of rupture, when the last straw 
has been laid upon its exceedingly patient back. 
Certainly the wise old Communard knew how far 
to go in his dealings with a people already ereinte, 
to use their own forceful adjective describing their 
moral and physical state as the result of the five 
years' tension. 

The indefinite extension of the moratorium with 



28 A LOITERER IX PARIS 

its attendant complications between landlord and 
tenant, the fabulous rise of workmen's wages, 
with its reaction ui3on prices in general, and the 
crowning disaster, the adoption of the eight-hour 
day, upsetting the routine of work at the very- 
moment when work was to have been the salva- 
tion of the country, these have been the outstand- 
ing factors in the great metamorphosis that has 
taken place in France. I doubt if even the great 
Revolution itself made more drastic changes in 
a people. 

In the enveloping thick of a mighty battle 
against the insistence of every minor annoyance, 
Paris has never been more uncomfortable, it has 
never been more thrillingly interesting. Deprived 
as we have been daily of each elementary com- 
modity in turn, obliged to scheme and plot for the 
strictest necessities, forced to give up, one after 
another, when it is not all at the same time, the 
comforts and luxuries of a normal existence, the 
essential charm and beauty, the poetic depths of 
the loved city, seem to hold aloof, to be for us of 
this hand-to-hand conflict with the hard facts of 
mere physical life, forever separated by those cen- 
turies which have rolled between us and the 
builders of Paris the beautiful, by that vast gulf 



SHIFTING SANDS 29 

of emptiness which represents for us now the in- 
terminable period of the war. 

Crossing the Pont du Carrousel frequently dur- 
ing days sacrificed to dealings with material ob- 
stacles, the vision of Notre-Dame, rising there in 
serene majesty, in all the glow of its Gothic 
beauty against the eastern sky, usually piled with 
soft, gray, cumulus clouds, into which the towers 
melt, seems so remote from actuality, from strife 
and struggle, as to detach itself from the present, 
to represent a phase of belief and an ideality of 
vision so long ignored as to have been completely 
forgotten. 

Secure on its tiny island, the birth-place of the 
city of the Romans, its massive architecture domi- 
nates the compactness of that old, romantic sec- 
tion, gives the note of remoter antiquity to that 
boat-like isle, freighted with the treasures of an 
only less ancient epoch. Pointing its prow to- 
wards the mouth of the Seine, the ile de la Cite 
seems to float upon the bosom of the silver river. 
Its forward part is green at most seasons with the 
verdure of the graceful trees which screen the 
heavy masonry of the Pont-Neuf. To the left, 
the composition is held together by the heavy mass 
of the Conciergerie, its conical towers relieving- 



30 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

the level of the roofs, while to the right the flat 
fa9ade of that handsome row of XVIIth century 
dwellings stands out clear, and from the middle 
rises high and fine the spire of the Sainte-Chapelle, 
silhouetted against the gray sky, its line repeated 
in the slender fleche of Notre-Dame, above the 
cross. From the left-hand tower the fateful siren, 
whose four great mouths announced the approach 
of the enemy's air raids, has lately been removed, 
the ancient glass of the three roses has been re- 
stored, and the cathedral stands firm and splendid 
as the symbol of the faith of its builders, of the 
great and serious Paris, the Paris that must come 
back in time. 



CHAPTER II 
THE BIRTH-PLACE 

Enchanting as it is from all points of view, 
it is, perhaps, from the Pont des Arts, that simple 
footbridge which, thrown like a mere log across 
a stream, spans the Seine before the Institut, 
that the story of the island breathes deepest its 
note of inexhaustible promise. 

Of the shell of Henri IV houses, which encloses 
the Place Dauphine, the two at the point of the 
island preserve, through restoration, their origi- 
nal character. As they are now, so was once the 
whole prow of the ile de la Cite. Between them 
one looks, as into the heart of a fire, upon an 
enclosed greenery, once part of the garden to the 
palace of the Ca?sars established in Roman times, 
where now is ponderously planted the Palais de 
Justice. 

The simile of the heart of the fire, a fire rich 
and glowing with the embers of remoter antiquity, 
never fails to strike me, as I pass now almost 
daily in my peregrinations back and forth be- 
tween the Louvre and the delightful Bibliotheque 



32 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Mazarine, lodged in a wing of the Institut de 
France. One seems here to have that older Paris 
completely within the hollow of the hand. 

The vista thus glimpsed of a ground so rich in 
layers of history that one seems never to reach 
the first deposit, is one of the most inviting of a 
city that goes in largely for vistas. Henri IV 
himself, so proud upon his mount there at the 
head of the island, looks in between Madame 
Roland's house and its cheerful twin, upon the 
place which he preserved and embellished. 

The Place Dauphine remains just as Henri IV 
made it, a cool retreat from the gaiety of the 
Pont-Neuf, completed in his reign. I could wish, 
upon closer inspection, that there were less as- 
phalt, and I am sure, as Henri designed it, what- 
ever, if any, carriages entered between the two 
openings in the belt of houses came by a modest 
driveway in keeping with the discretion of the 
enclosure. The king named it in commemora- 
tion of the birth of Louis XIII, the then dauphin 
of France. The place, accommodating itself to 
the form of the island, is triangular, and the 
houses in their original state were of red brick 
with wide markings of white stone and steep re- 
naissance roofs of blue slate, all of the same struc- 
ture and symmetry. There were never more than 



THE BIRTH-PLACE 33 

the two entrances, one in the middle of the base 
of the triangle and the other opposite in the angle 
upon the Pont-Neuf. The houses are shallow and 
have two fa9ades of equal importance, and the 
two large ones upon the Rue de Harlay form acute 
angles with the quays. The whole scheme is amus- 
ing and original. There is nothing here to sug- 
gest the lugubrious Louis XIII, but the whole 
disposition of affairs exhales that charm and vi- 
vacity inseparable from the memory of Henri IV. 

Now the oldest bridge in Paris, the Pont-Neuf, 
finished in 1608, was then the newest — all Paris 
adopted it as the fashionable promenade and made 
it the scene of their rendezvous. As the XVIIth 
century advanced it became the official passage of 
the royal processions going to parliament. 

Old maps show two little islets preceding the 
present ile de la Cite; they remained until the end 
of the XVIth century and were accredited to 
the abbot of Saint-Germain. The largest lay to- 
wards the left bank of the Seine and in various 
deeds and titles is called I'isle des Juifs, I'isle aux 
Treilles, I'isle aux Vaches, and isle de Seine. The 
vineyards of this island, whence the name tie auoc 
Treilles (trellis), must have been considerable, 
for an old act records six hogsheads of wine from 
the trellises behind the Palais, given by the king 



34 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

to the chaplain of Saint-Nicholas-du-Palais in the 
year 1160. The abbot and monks of Saint-Ger- 
main profited from the pasturage of cows there. 

The other island, much smaller, was called 
sometimes I'isle. de Bussy and again I'isle du 
Passeur aux Vaches. 

These were joined to the larger island when 
the Pont-Neuf was projected, in the reign of 
Henri III, and the bridge rests upon them. 
When the first pier emerged from the water, at 
the side of the Quai des Grands-Augustins, the 
king accompanied by his wife, Louise de Vaude- 
mont, and his mother, Catherine de Medicis, rode 
from the Louvre in a magnificent barge, to lay 
the corner-stone. It bore the arms of the king, 
the dowager, and the city of Paris, and the date, 
May 30, 1578. That day Henri had seen pass, 
on its way to the church of Saint-Paul in the 
Marais, the funeral procession of Quelus and de 
Maugiron, his dearest minions, and out of respect 
for his grief the bridge bore for a time the name, 
Pont des Pleurs. 

All the history of Paris is mingled with this 
old and admirable Pont-Neuf. Jacques- Androuet 
Du Cerceau, distinguished under both Henri III 
and Henri IV, was the architect, and the bridge 
is spoken of as his chef-d'oeuvre. One of its at- 



THE BIRTH-PLACE 35 

tractions, a tremendous innovation, was an hy- 
draulic pump, constructed by Lintlaer, a Flemish 
engineer, upon one of the piers of the bridge — 
the second from the right bank. Its mission was 
to distribute water to the Louvre and the Tuile- 
ries, hitherto unprovided, and it was one of the 
mechanical wonders of the age. " L'eau de la 
pompe du Pont-Neuf est auoc Tuileries," wrote 
Malherbe triumphantly, on October 3, 1608, as 
though the impossible had been accomplished. 

The Musee Carnavalet preserves the model of 
the little chateau d'eau in which the machine was 
housed. The charming little renaissance building 
gave piquancy to the river views; its fa9ade to- 
wards the promenade was ornamented with a 
group of sculpture representing Jesus receiving 
water from the woman of Samaria at Jacob's 
Well, from which the familiar name of the build- 
ing, La Samaritaine. A chiming clock with, says 
John Evelyn, " a very rare dyall of several mo- 
tions," filled the rounded space above the group, 
and a little wooden campanile contained the caril- 
lon of bells, which, playing every hour, charmed 
and diverted the people. Falling into decay, the 
Samaritaine was rebuilt in 1712, only to be again 
mutilated, by the Revolution, when the statues 
were destroyed as too reminiscent of the evangel. 



36 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

The Roman fortress or palace, which formed 
the western buttress of the antique city of Julian 
the Apostate, became in later centuries the palace 
of the kings of France, culminating in importance 
and grandeur under Saint-Louis; and who is not 
familiar with the oft-repeated story of that sub- 
limely simple monarch, seated under the trees in 
the garden of his palace, administering a merci- 
ful justice to his beloved and loving subjects? 

Let Joinville tell it again in his archaic tongue: 

" Je le vis aucunefois en ete, que pour delivrer 
sa gent il venoit ou jardin de Paris, une cote de 
camelot vestue, un surcot de t3a'eteinne sans 
manche, un mantel de ceudal noir entour son col, 
moult bien pigne, et sans coife, et un ch'ipel de 
paon blanc sur la teste, et faisoit estendre tapis 
pour nous seoir entour li, et tout le peuple qui 
avoit a faire par devant li, estoit entour, et lors 
il faisoit delivrer en la maniere, que je vous ai 
dit devant, du bois de Vincennes." 

In still earlier times a mill for minting moneys 
stood in this field belonging to the Palais. A 
street. Rue de la Monnaie, behind Saint-Germain- 
I'Auxerrois, recalls this obscure fact, and from a 
similar association comes the name of the second 
of the three pepper-pot towers which, standing 
along the Quai de I'Horloge, mark the northern 
boundary of the ancient palace. The first mint 



THE BIRTH-PLACE 37 

must have been this Tour d'Argeot and the fa- 
mous mill, indicated upon the oklest maps of 
Paris, was probably a modern contrivance for 
striking coins built as an improvement upon the 
mint of the Tour d'Argent. 

The tall, square tower, the Tour de I'Horloge, 
rising almost to the height of the Tour Saint- 
Jacques, that isolated Gothic fragment, upon the 
right bank of the Seine, places the northeast 
corner of the Palais. From its summit was echoed 
the fateful signal for the Massacre of Saint-Bar- 
tholomew, first sounded from Saint-Germain- 
I'Auxerrois. 

The first of the pointed towers, coupled to the 
Tour d'Argent, long bore the name Tour de 
Montgomery, in memory of the captain of the 
Scotch guards imprisoned therein after fatally 
wounding Henri II in a tournament near Place 
des Vosges. Place des Vosges was then a royal 
park attached to the palace of the Tournelles, 
built by Charles V as a country house. There, on 
July 1, 1559, Henri II, fighting under the colours 
of Diane de Poitiers, broke his lance against the 
Earl of Montgomery, and Montgomery's lance 
raising the visor of the king's helmet penetrated 
his adversary's eye. The king died of the wound 
ten days later at the Tournelles. 



38 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Ravaillac, the assassin of Henri IV, and Da- 
miens, who attempted the life of Louis XV, spent 
also their last days in this tower. The Tour 
Bonbec, the last aiid smallest, is the most perfect 
of the towers, since it has preserved its battle- 
ments. With the modern restoration of the Pa- 
lais, these names, which had both point and 
flavour, have been changed. Montgomery be- 
comes the Tour de Cesar; Bonbec, the Tour 
Saint-Louis. 

These four towers then, with the Sainte-Cha- 
pelle, determine accurately the perimeter of the 
Palais from the Merovingien monarchs to the 
first of the House of Valois. The Palais, thus 
simply designated from time immemorial, meant 
the kings' residence upon the ile de la Cite, 
whereas one specified Palais des Thermes, chateau 
du Louvre, chateau de Vincennes. The occa- 
sional residence, merely, of the Merovingiens, 
who affected the Thermes, it was in this palace 
that the sovereigns of France held court from the 
Capetiens to Charles V. The Roman building 
appears to have lasted until the time of the Nor- 
man invasions, when Count Eudes rebuilt the 
palace as a square fortress, defended by high 
towers, its facade characterized by four great 
round-headed arches, flanked by bastions, of which 




HENRI rV ON THE PONT-XEUF. 



THE BIRTH-PLACE 41 

the remains were discovered when the Cour de 
Harlay was pulled down. 

Louis le Gros and Louis le Jeune both died 
within the walls of this palace, and here Philippe 
Auguste was married to a Danish princess. 
Blanche de Castille, mother of Saint-Louis, is 
said to have inhabited the right-hand tower. 

At the beginning of the XlVth century the 
Palais presented a reunion of buildings of which 
the oldest went back to the epoch of Louis IX 
and the most recent dated from the time of Philippe 
le Bel, or about 1313. 

The beautiful early XVIth century Gothic 
buildings erected by Louis XII, which sur- 
rounded the Cour du Mai, totally perished in the 
three fires of 1618, 1737, and 1776. These fires 
also destroyed the Hotel Isabeau, once occupied 
by the unfaithful wife of Charles VI; the rooms 
in which the Burgundians seized the Comte d'Ar- 
magnac. Constable of France, and Chancellor 
Henri de Masle, and others; the Grand' Salle, in 
which was held the coronation banquet of Henry 
IV of England, when he was crowned king of 
France; the halls of Saint-Louis, and the room 
in which that king spent his bridal night, and in 
which thereafter the kings of France slept upon 
the night of their arrival in Paris. 



42 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

The triumphal entry of the sovereigns upon 
their accession to the throne was feted with many 
curious and beautiful customs. As the cortege 
advanced towards the Palais by the Grand Pont 
" two hundred dozens of birds " were set free 
by the bird market to add to the festivity of the 
scene. In consideration of this the bird dealers 
were allowed the privilege of selling their stock 
upon the Grand Pont on Sundays and fete days, 
so that the bridge in olden times came to be known 
as le Pont aux Oiseaux. By the rue de Lutece 
and across from the Prefecture of Police is still a 
market where birds of all sorts are for sale on 
fete days and Sundays, a survival of the ancient 
custom. 

Saint-Louis gave certain rights of the Palais to 
a court of justice, but Charles V was the first to 
abandon it to the newly created parliament, re- 
moving his court to the famous Hotel Saint-Pol, 
under the protection of the Bastille, from which 
later developed the Palais des Tournelles. Mean- 
while the Louvre was slowly advancing from the 
fortress of Philippe Auguste into a residence for 
the last monarchs of the House of Valois. 

The palace of antiquity lies buried beneath the 
crushing mass of the modern Palais de Justice, 
rebuilt after the furies of the Commune had de- 
stroyed most of the buildings erected after the 



THE BIRTH-PLACE 43 

fire of 1776 (about 1874). The domain of the 
CcTsars forms in effect the foundations, the cel- 
lars, of the contemporary pile. The Quai de 
I'Horloge covers about twenty feet of those an- 
tique constructions, its road-bed lies well above 
the beginnings of the three round towers, whose 
elevation, even yet of an imposing height, be- 
speaks a primitive structure of impressive ele- 
gance. Judged by them alone this palace 
of antiquity over which you walk in treading 
the floor of the immense Salle des Pas Perdus, 
of the present palace, was a marvel of architec- 
ture. 

Such fragments as remain poets have woven 
into a fantastic fabric, which the cool judgment 
of archaeologists has in turn destroyed. It is all 
so indefinite that one may choose for belief be- 
tween the rich legends of the romanticists and 
the alleged facts of the materialists. It is true 
that very little of the ancient palace remains, that 
the towers show remorseless reconstruction, but 
it is equally true that the foundations have yielded 
from time to time some thrilling evidence of pre- 
historic times. 

The Bibliotheque Nationale preserves in its 
cabinet of antiquities a quadrangular cipjje, or 
truncated funeral column, found very deep 
amongst the debris of an ancient edifice under- 



U A LOITERER IN PARIS 

lying a part of the Palais ruined by the fire of 
1776. This cippe is thought to date from the 
Ilird century. It is five feet ten inches in height 
and bears no inscription, and each side is orna- 
mented by the standing figure of a divinity in 
high relief. There is Mercury with all his attri- 
butes; a woman holding a caduceus, possibly 
Maia, the mother of Mercury; Apollo with the 
bow and quiver; and a winged figure difficult to 
identify. 

Again in the middle of the last century excava- 
tions under the Palais discovered the remains of 
certain Gallo-Roman constructions. 

Beside the Tour de I'Horloge, along the quay, 
is a vaulted hall, built upon a quincunx of col- 
umns (arranged like a five-si)ot) with four large 
chimneys in the corners. This room is known as 
the cuisines de Saint-Louis, though Viollet-le- 
Duc, who studied the question, attributes it to the 
period of Philippe le Bel. What remains is 
thought to be the lower floor of a kitchen built in 
two stories, the lower serving for the domestics' 
table and the upper for the service of the king. 

Situated between the twin towers of the Con- 
ciergerie, and opening from the Salle des Pas 
Perdus, is the Premiere Chamhre of the court. 
This was once the Grand' Cliavibre of the parlia- 




Photo A. Giraudon 



.E CHRIST DL- PARLEMEXT. 
■ROM THE GRAND CTIA.MBRE 
;0\V IN THE LOliVRE. 



OP THE PAI.AIS DU JUSTICE. 



THE BIRTH-PLACE 47 

ment of Paris. Saint-Louis built it, together 
with the Sainte-Chapelle and the Grand' Salle, 
and Louis XII restored and ornamented it with 
a ceiling of golden caissons, walls hung with blue 
velvet and fleurs-de-lys in raised gold, high stained 
windows whose semi-translucency bathed the room 
in a rich, colourful twilight, and at the end of 
the room a large jDicture with sentences from the 
sacred writings under a crucifix. 

The history of France was enacted here. In 
this room Francois I held his seat of justice; here 
the marechal de Biron was condemned to death; 
here, in 1614, parliament proclaimed the majority 
of Louis XIII; and here it was, on August 16, 
1655, that Louis XIV, arriving post-haste from 
Vincennes, in hunting costume, booted and 
spurred, sprang to the dais and ordered the edicts 
recorded without discussion in fulfilment of his 
glorious assumption: " L'Etat, c'est moi." 

In this same room, by a reversal of fortunes, 
the great-grandson of the autocrat presided at 
the seance (Sei3tember 12, 1715) which broke the 
will of the Roi-Soleil in favour of the legitimized 
princes. Little Louis XV, aged five years, but 
described as dcja dccoratif, sat upon cushions em- 
broidered with the fleur-de-lys under the surveil- 
lance of his governess, Madame de Ventadour, 



48 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

while at his feet were the regent and the dukes 
and peers of parliament. 

Parliament perished with the advent of the 
Revolution. Suspended by a law of November 
3, 1789, it was suppressed in August of the fol- 
lowing year, and in 1793 the Chamhre Dorce was 
transformed into a Salle cVEgalite. At the end 
of the room, his back to the Seine, the president 
of the Revolutionary tribunal was enthroned be- 
neath a bust of Socrates flanked by those of 
Murat and Lepeletier. The vaulted roof of 
Louis XII covered them, but its grandeur was 
masked and the escutcheons of royalty had been 
scraped from the walls. Dukes, marshals, bishops, 
princes, the king, the queen — all the ancient no- 
bility of France, the Orleanistes, Brissot, with the 
Girondistes, Saint-Just and the comitc du salut 
puhlique, all the condemned of all the parties — 
Marie-Antoinette and Madame Roland, Charlotte 
Corday and the Abbesse de Montmorency, the 
Dubarry and Madame Elisabeth, Hebert and his 
partisans, Danton and his party, Malesherbes, the 
marechal de Noailles, Camille Desmoulins, Robes- 
pierre — all, by hundreds, passed this fantastic 
mockery of judgment. 

Here was heard, on October 14, 1793, the piti- 
ful affaire de la veuve Capet. The trial of the 



THE BIRTH-PLACE 49 

queen of France occupied twenty consecutive 
hours, while, her destiny prejudged, she was sub- 
jected to every insult, accused of every infamy, 
compared to Catherine de Medicis, Messaline, 
Fredegonde! The seance broke up at four o'clock 
in the morning of the second day and Marie- 
Antoinette left the salle du tribunal, to regain her 
cell in the Conciergerie, by the little door to the 
left — it still exists — and descended the tiny spiral 
stairway built in the Tour Montgomery. 

The horrors of the Revolution swallow up all 
minor miseries of the Conciergerie — primitively 
the lodge of the concierge of the ancient palace, 
yet here the Comte d'Armagnac was murdered, 
and here, below the level of the Seine, was the 
Souriciere, the mouse-trap, of infamous memory. 

Under the Reign of Terror the unique entrance 
to the Conciergerie was under the archway to the 
right of the grand stairway of the Cour de Mai, 
down nine worn steps into a damp court, and 
through a low gray door, protected by a rusty 
double grill. Time has so softened the memory 
of the terrors of this locality that the restaurant 
of the Palais has had the heart to install itself in 
the very court of infamy, in the very antichamhre 
of death. Aside from this the theatre of drama 
is singularly unchanged. 



50 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

The Cour de Mai — the name derived from the 
maypole annually erected in the court of the 
Palais by the lawyers' clerks — thus became the 
arena for the daily spectacle of horror as the carts 
delivered the " suspects " and called again for 
the condemned, who came through the little gray 
door, from the dungeons, into the tiny court, and 
mounted the steps to be carted away to the guil- 
lotine. If the steps of the Palais were crammed 
with spectators, the top of the wall itself, over the 
arch, was alive with a howling and vociferating 
mob, which hurled filthy projectiles and insults 
at the unfortunates, who, their hair cut as much 
for the profit of wig makers as the convenience 
of the blade, their hands tied behind them, were 
made to wait in this pillory while the hourreau, 
clad in a long redingote and coiffed with a top 
hat, identified the victims with his lists before ty- 
ing them to the benches or sides of the cart facing 
the crowd which ran with the wagons to the Con- 
corde. 

With Balzac one regrets that the Conciergerie 
has invaded the palace of the kings; its hideous 
recollections overlie every other consideration. 
" The heart bleeds," says the romanticist, " to 
see how they have shaped jails, keeps, corridors, 
lodgings, dungeons without light or air, in this 



THE BIRTH-PLACE 51 

magnificent composition where Byzantine, Ro- 
man, Gothic — these three faces of ancient art have 
been joined together by the architecture of the 
Xllth century. This palace is to the monu- 
mental history of France of the first epoch what 
the chateau of Blois is to the monumental history 
of the second period. Just as at Blois, in the 
court, you may admire the castle of the counts of 
Blois, of Louis XII, of Fran9ois I, of Gaston; 
so in the Conciergerie you find, in the same en- 
closure, the character of the first dynasties and 
in the Sainte-Chapelle the architecture of Saint- 
Louis." (Scenes de la vie parisierme.) 



CHAPTER III 
THE ROMANS IN LUTETIA 

Or all the legends concerning the origin of 
Paris the most charming is that intrepid fabrica- 
tion of the Moyen Age which names Francus, son 
of Hector, father of France and founder of its 
principal city, called for his beautiful uncle, Paris. 

The story, with all its amusing detail, may be 
followed in the transcription by Jehan Bouchet, 
of Poitiers, who, writing in the early XVIth cen- 
tury, gives a complete genealogy of the descent 
of " Pharamond," the mythical " first Mero- 
vingien," from Astynax (Francus), who, thrown 
over the walls of Troy by Ulysses, escaped in a 
sack to Hungary, becoming king of the Sicam- 
bres, whose domain extended to the banks of the 
Rhine. Another version establishes the grandson 
of Priam as king of Gaul and founder of Troyes, 
in Champagne, from which he came to plant upon 
the island of the Seine the city of the Parisians. 

Whether Bouchet, the transmitter of this bur- 
lesque history, was a practical joker, or merely a 
naif chronicler, we can only surmise. At all 

52 



THE ROMANS IN LUTETIA 53 

events Ronsard takes the fable as the basis of his 
epic poem, La Franciade, and so it passes into 
literature. 

Leaving to the realms of fiction such pleasing 
fancies, such scant knowledge as we have of the 
primitive settlement engirdled by the Seine comes 
from the note-books of the Roman emperors who 
encountered it during the conquest of Gaul, and 
who made it during the subsequent years of occu- 
pation a place of residence. 

To the best of belief the Parisii, as the Romans 
name them, were a Celtic people of comparatively 
small importance who occupied a stronghold upon 
the Seine at the period of Roman conquest. 
Julius CfEsar found them here upon his arrival with 
his conquering host from 58 to 51 B.C., so that 
it was in the first century before our era that the 
little tribe figured for the first time upon the his- 
toric scene. 

Their town, called Lutetia Parisioriivi (Lutetia 
of the Parisians), was situated, says Caesar, "on 
an island of the river Sequana [Seine]." There 
are writers who say that Julius Caesar built the 
Grand Chatelet, the first great gateway of the 
island city on the north bank, but it seems fairly 
certain that while he conquered, pillaged, and de- 
stroyed extensively he built no edifice in Gaul. 



54 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Beside the Palais in the Cite, the successors of 
the greatest Roman built a country seat on the 
left bank of the Seine not far from the present 
Sorbonne, a palace of vast extent and in the 
Roman manner with baths, whose gardens and 
dependances extended from the Mont Locutitius 
(now Sainte-Genevieve) to the banks of the 
Seine. Something of the scale of magnificence 
of this Palais des Thermes may be judged from 
the great frigidarium, which stands in a state of 
remarkable perfection after sixteen centuries, de- 
voted chiefly to neglect and abuse, abutting 
sharply upon the Boulevard Saint-Michel. 

In this palace the emperors went into winter 
quarters. Constantius Chlorus is thought to have 
been the builder; he lived fourteen winters in 
Lutetia; while it is historically certain that Julian 
the Apostate lived here and that, in 306, his troops 
proclaimed him emperor in the camp without the 
Palais des Thermes. 

The emperor Julian, in his Misopogon, describ- 
ing Paris as his cara Lutetia, found it " situated 
on a small island entirely surrounded by the 
waters of a river, and reached by two wooden 
bridges;" from which we judge that for several 
centuries under the Romans the stockaded island 
village did not grow beyond its natural boundary, 



Photo A. Oiraudon 



ANTIQUE STATX-F. OF .TX'LIAN THE APOSTATE, PROCLAIMED EMPEROR 
IN 360 A.D.. IN THE PALAIS DES THERMES 
NOW IN THE MTJSEE DE CLTJNY. 



THE ROMANS IN LUTETIA 57 

nor did it compete in importance with such Gallic 
towns as Aries, Nimes, Marseilles, Bordeaux, or 
Lyon. 

The name Lutetia was of unknown origin. For 
some it indicated the " city of crows," for others 
" the muddiest " city ; but in any case, whatever 
its derivative, the name of the town was soon dis- 
placed by the name of the tribe, and Lutetia be- 
came Parisea Civitas, the city of the Parisians, 
and so Paris. 

At first the river formed the highway, then the 
two bridges, which Julian describes, tied the vil- 
lage to the mainland, one to the right, the other 
to the left bank of the Seine, standing where are 
now the Pont au Change and the Petit Pont, and 
these two bridges put the city into communication 
with the two principal roads built by the Romans, 
one leaving Paris for the northern provinces and 
the coast, the other bearing away towards Orleans 
and Rome. 

The old Route d'Orleans, upon which lay the 
country seat of the Caesars, lies buried under the 
present Rue Saint-Jacques, as was proven when, 
in 1842, that ancient street of old Paris was 
opened to a considerable depth for the laying of 
a sewer, and the antique Roman paving, com- 
posed of enormous blocks of sandstone, irregu- 



58 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

larly laid (such as one still sees in the city of 
Autun) was exposed. A dozen of these blocks 
were taken up and deposited in the garden of the 
Palais des Thermes as part of its contemporary 
collection. 

That the soil of Paris covers many interesting 
souvenirs of the Roman occupation and conquest 
has been proven over and over again when, in 
digging foundations, laying drains, or whatever, 
the workman's pick has encountered fragments 
of edifices, portions of walls, ruins of houses, 
tombs, temples, altars to pagan deities, statues, 
inscriptions, coins. Before the XVIIth century 
such discoveries, if made, were unrecorded, but 
since that time the city has taken care to preserve 
such precious fragments of a remote civilization, 
and keeps at the Louvre, the Bibliotheque Na- 
tionale, the Cluny Museum, or again some few 
at the Musee Carnavalet, a large and growing 
collection of treasures found in the soil of Paris. 

From these discoveries it has been possible to 
trace the extent and disposition of the Romanized 
city in which Julian the Apostate loved to dwell. 
The Palais upon the prow of the island was bal- 
anced by a Temple to Jupiter raised by the boat- 
men of Paris, in the 1st century of our era, upon 
the eastern extremity of the citv, where later was 



THE ROMANS IN LUTETIA 59 

raised the first Christian church. Its remains 
were discovered in 1711, in digging under the 
choir of Notre-Dame, and have been transported 
to the Salle des Thermes. 

These remains consist of nine large blocks of 
stone carved with reliefs and inscriptions. One 
of them, of which three faces are charged with 
reliefs, is inscribed on its fourth: 

TIB, CAESARE, AUG JOVI OPTUMO 
MAXSUMO. . . M. NAUTAE. PARISIACI 
PUBLICE POSIERUNT. 

Traced by a clumsy hand the letters omitted 
were afterwards added above the words to which 
they belonged. The inscription is supposed to 
mean: Under Tiberius Caesar Augustus, the Pa- 
risian boatmen publicly erected this altar to the 
great and good Jupiter. As it was customary in 
the first centuries of the new faith to supplant 
idolatrous temples by Christian churches there is 
little doubt that the first church erected on the 
site of Notre-Dame was deliberately placed over 
the demolished Temple of Jupiter. 

In close proximity to the Palais des Thermes 
was the Roman camp, placed in such a manner 
as to protect the palace. It occupied in great part 
the declivity where is to-day the Luxembourg 



60 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Garden. Contemporary writings had indicated 
the existence of this camp, or barracks, near the 
palace of Constantius Chlorus, but it was not 
until the beginning of the XlXth century that 
its exact position was defined. 

The first indication of its probable location was, 
in 1615, when, in throwing up the earth for the 
foundations of the Luxembourg Palace, a bronze 
figure of Mercury was found; and three centuries 
later, when the eastern part of the garden was 
terraced, important researches and discoveries 
were made. Then cooking utensils and table im- 
plements were uncovered in abundance as well as 
a great number of vases, whole or in fragments 
and of all sizes and dimensions, plates, spoons, 
forks, and the handles of knives. Many objects 
strictly military in character belonging to the cos- 
tume of a soldier, such as hooks, buckles, or fibu- 
lae, buttons, ornaments, harness, and scabbards, 
were also found. 

In 1836 and 1838 new discoveries were made 
in digging to make additions to the Luxembourg 
Palace for the installation of the House of Peers, 
and in digging the foundations of the orangerie 
to the west of the palace. Amongst the mass of 
fragments then found was a cachette made of five 
Roman bricks with a cover of thin silver, hand- 



THE ROMANS IN LUTETIA 61 

somely embossed. This cachette contained seven 
hundred large bronze medals of twenty-five Ro- 
man emperors from Galba to Mamsea, and two 
hundred small silver medals from Augustus to 
Volusian, from which it was presumed that the 
hidmg place was closed up about the Ilird cen- 
tury. 

Further excavations incident to the opening of 
the Rue Soufflot, in 1848, revealed substructures 
in which were recognized the remains of the castra 
stativa, or barracks, of the Gallo-Roman garrison 
which is supposed to have extended from the 
Luxembourg Gardens to the Rue Monge, an old 
street which lies well behind and below the Pan- 
theon. 

Roman tombs were found in the heights of the 
Saint- Jacques quarter, remains of an ancient pot- 
tery manufacture were identified under the 
foundations of the Pantheon, and in 1870-1883 
excavations beyond the Rue Monge disclosed a 
small amphitheatre of the second or third century. 
" On the east side of the INIont Sainte-Gene- 
vieve," says Delaure, writing the history of Paris, 
" was a site where one sole deed of 1284 gave the 
name ' Clos des Arenes.' This gave rise to the 
opinion that an amphitheatre had existed there, 
but nothing remains to establish the fact." The 



62 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Historian never knew of its existence but is care- 
ful to record the exact location of the site, as 
lying between a house formerly called " La Doc- 
trine Chretienne " and the Rue Saint- Victor. 

When I first saw this arena, in 1905, about half 
of it only had been uncovered, while old houses 
built over the other half stood undisturbed, an odd 
and exceedingly picturesque mingling of antiquity 
and modernity tucked away in an old, dilapidated 
quarter of Paris, far from the track of the beau 
monde. Now the whole amphitheatre has been 
uncovered and so unsparingly restored as to have 
lost its convincing manner. On the night of the 
famous Fourteenth of July, 1919, as part of the 
memorable peace celebration of that day, the 
rehabilitated and rejuvenated amphitheatre of 
the Romans was inaugurated by a performance 
of Le Cid, by the artists of the Comedie Fran- 
9aise; but whether owing to the excessive restora- 
tion of the place itself, or to the overdone tradi- 
tionalism of the French actress, in particular, 
or the incongruity of the audience, or the difficul- 
ties made about entering, or whatever, the per- 
formance, to me at least, failed absolutely of ef- 
fectiveness, and with the best of predispositions in 
its favour I lost completely the sense of every 
century but my own, with its fatigues and horrors 



THE ROMANS IN LUTETIA 63 

so barely distanced. The unending douleur of 
the heroine seemed in bad taste after all we had 
been through, and one felt disconcerted by her 
lack of reticence. 

Nothing was spared to make the Palais des 
Thermes a splendid residence. A Roman aque- 
duct brought water from the springs of Rongis, 
far from the centre of Paris. Subterranean dur- 
ing the greater part of its course, it traversed the 
valley of Arcueil along a suite of high arcades of 
which time has respected a few piers, of fine archi- 
tecture. The antique aqueduct has been com- 
pletely recognized throughout its extent and is 
accompanied by a modern conduit which brings 
to Paris the waters of the same source. 

The Gallo-Roman palace was abandoned at the 
approach of the Norman invasion. It offered less 
security than the Palais of the Cite, sheltered be- 
hind a wall and protected by its natural moat, the 
two arms of the Seine. About the end of the 
Xllth century, however, Jean de Hauteville still 
speaks in pompous language of the summits of 
this palace " lost in the skies," while its founda- 
tions " invaded the empire of the dead." 

Philippe Auguste gave the palace to Henri, his 
chamberlain, in 1218; and in 1360, Pierre de Cha- 
ins, abbot of Cluny, acquired what still stood, for 



64 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

the wall of Philippe Aiiguste, which should have 
protected the Palais des Thermes, on the con- 
trary diminished its extent and demolished sev- 
eral dependaiices in its path. During the interval 
between its ownership by kings and its purchase 
by the abbots of Cluny the palace underwent 
many changes, of which the most interesting was 
the erection of hanging gardens, similar to those 
of Babylon, established above the solid Roman 
arches. One of these gardens subsisted until 1820. 

Upon the site of the ancient palace two other 
abbots of Cluny, Jean de Bourbon and Jacques 
d'Amboise, built the sumptuous XVth century 
hotel, one of those rare civil edifices which bear 
witness to the architectural taste of its epoch. In 
its perfect state of preservation it offers a charm- 
ing specimen of the living quality in domestic 
architecture which expanded at the beginning of 
the XVth century and was far from being ex- 
hausted at the dawn of the Renaissance. As rep- 
resenting the transition between Gothic and Re- 
naissance feeling, this Hotel de Cluny belongs 
properly to later ramblings, but since the existing 
remnant of the Palais des Thermes cannot be 
visited now without passing through it, curiosity 
must be in part satisfied. 

The hotel was the town residence of the abbots 



THE ROMANS IN LUTETIA 65 

of Cliiny. But as they came seldom to Paris, 
their palace was from time to time let to various 
distinguished persons: thus Marie d'Angleterre, 
the widowed bride of Louis XII, came here to 
pass her period of mourning and was here mar- 
ried to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. In 
this hotel Fran(;ois I married his daughter Made- 
leine to James V of Scotland. The Cardinals of 
Lorraine, the princes of Guise, the due d'Aumale 
sojourned here during their trips to Paris. After- 
wards the Jiotcl was lived in by actors, then by 
nuns of Port Royal, and under the Revolution be- 
came national property and served as a place of 
public meetings for this quarter. In the early 
part of the XlXth century it was bought by du 
Sommerard, an archaeologist, who enriched it with 
his precious collections, the nucleus of the present 
museum. 

Meanwhile as the Hotel de Cluny waxed glori- 
ous the Palais des Thermes was neglected and 
abandoned. Its monumental ruin, the frigida- 
rium, served as a storage house for a barrel 
maker, to which base use its architecture lent it- 
self marvellously. If it was not torn down it was 
probably because of the expense and inconven- 
ience of demolishing so stalwart a structure; but 
in order that it should not offend the eye of the 



66 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

distinguished occupants of the Hotel de Cluny, 
the hanging gardens of which we have spoken 
were built over the roof. The Roman vaulting 
supported on its back a deep bed of earth divided 
into flower-beds and kitchen gardens, where apple 
trees grew six feet high, and lettuces and lilies 
flourished. One walked out into this garden 
through the rooms of the second floor of the ab- 
batial residence in indifference if not in ignorance 
of the august foundations whose robust constitu- 
tion alone saved them. 

Louis XVIII was the first monarch of France 
since the Merovingiens to take an interest in their 
fate. He was a lettered prince, capable, so says 
tradition, of reciting whole books of Virgil and 
odes of Horace, from which perhaps came his 
taste for Roman antiquities. At any rate in 1819 
through his intervention the Thermes was rescued, 
the gardens demolished, and the old monument 
leased by the city and a certain sum voted for the 
restoration of the walls. Afterwards it became 
the property of the municipality, and when, in 
1842, upon the death of du Sommerard, the hotel 
of the abbots of Cluny, with the collections it con- 
tained, was purchased by the state, the Thermes 
was presented by the city, and the whole united 



THE ROMANS IN LUTETIA 67 

in the present Musee de Cluny that forms one of 
the series of national museums of France. 

Fragments of Roman construction may be rec- 
ognized throughout the Hotel de Cluny, especially 
where it joins the Thermes; its west wing rests 
against the antique wall. It is through this wing 
that one must pass to enter the great hall of the 
Roman palace, now devoted to an appropriate 
collection of antique debris contemporary with 
itself or culled from the demolition of innumer- 
able monuments of the Moyen Age. 

All bare and despoiled as it is the Salle des 
Thermes, with its high vaultings, its archivolts, its 
arcades and niches, still commands admiration and 
respect. On the north side is the piscine, or swim- 
ming pool, its flooring lower down; and on the 
other side arcades, now walled in, communicated 
with other rooms, and great niches show plainly 
where canals brought water to the baths from the 
springs of Rongis. Of the tepidarium nothing 
remains but the ruined walls; it was bordered with 
big niches and arranged as a hemicycle. 

Presiding over the exhibits exhumed from the 
soil of Lutece is a statue of Julian the Apostate, 
found in a marble cutter's yard in Paris at the 
time that the ruins of the Thermes were about to 



68 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

be rescued from their misery and abandon. No 
one knew its origin, whether it dated from the 
Roman occupation or whether it had been brought 
in under Francois I, who had a taste for antique 
sculptures and who started the collections at the 
Louvre; but its antiquity has never been doubted. 

We are here then, at last, under vaultings and 
within walls which date back to the time of the 
Caesars, in the very oldest building of Paris, and 
it is here, par Circelleticc, that the most intelligent 
study of the city should begin, by reason of its 
origin and its destiny. 

At first, perhaps, as one looks upon these bare 
stone walls and upon the fragments of primitive 
monuments with which the room is furnished, one 
feels a chill as of the abstract over all, a remote- 
ness too elusory to offer any point of contact. 
But not so. One has only to read a very little 
into antiquity to find how intensely human it all 
was. And as one learns even a little about that 
past which the intense vitality of the French has 
from time to time ruthlessly swept aside in the 
achievement of its ever modern purpose, this 
museum, thus housed within its own chief exhibit, 
becomes of absorbing, living interest, and con- 
stantly draws us by its extraordinary verity and 
the fecundity of its inspiration. 



CHAPTER IV 
VISTAS: UNDER THE CATHEDRAL 

Notre-Dame, from whatever angle one may 
take it, reveals itself with a certain magnificent 
surprise to which one never grows stale. Its 
Gothic grandeur, rising from the smooth surface 
of the Parvis, presents the substantial, enduring 
bulk, as if in sum total, of the primary factors of 
the mediaeval city reared upon the foundations of 
the remoter Roman city, moulded into indomita- 
ble relation to the modern city, which it dwarfs 
and minimizes, the while protecting, and su- 
premely holds at bay. 

As characterizing Paris, compare it with what 
you will, it never yields a jot of its importance. 
The willowy Eiffel Tower, which from the west- 
ern extremity of the Champ de Mars spans lightly 
prodigious spaces and lifts its head to vertiginous 
heights as the emblem of a frivolous experiment, 
is no more marvellous a feat of engineering than 
are these flying buttresses which support the apse 
of the Xllth century construction of the cathe- 
dral; the white towers of the basilica crowning 



70 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Montmartre reflect indeed a spectacular image of 
Paris in pretty despair over her sins; but Notre- 
Dame, and Notre-Dame only, clutches and holds 
the vitals of the past, the present, and the future, 
sinks its roots deep into the history of the soil, 
reflects the temper of the people, embodies the 
power, and the impotence, of kings and bishops, 
dominates the mob, and succours the masses. 

The blood of revolutions has stained its portails, 
profane hands have pillaged and restored its 
sculpture, have broken its ornaments, have cast 
away its glass, have sacked its sanctuary; these 
things are but incidents. The silhouette is main- 
tained; so, by a miracle, are most of the salient 
features, the more important details; so, by its 
powerful dimensions, the eloquence of its en- 
semble, its Gothic mystery and imagery, does the 
great facade inspire awe, if not a sense of terror, 
a terror of the gravity of life and death and 
eternity, an emotion as if in the awful presence 
of religion made manifest. And this, though, 
upon inspection, carried out in the literal stories 
of the embrasures and tympanums and piers of 
the great doors, not at all the eff"ect of such puerile 
devices, whose quaintness touches one in quite 
another way, but as the sublime effect of the 
architecture itself. 



VISTAS: UNDER THE CATHEDRAL 71 

Ah, but this first aspect of the great cathedral 
is a thing to conjure with. To one who loves it 
and who loves Paris, there are whole mornings, 
afternoons, and evenings to be devoted to nothing 
more than giving one's self the ever new thrill of 
coming upon it, as it were, unawares. Approach- 
ing it squarely from the remotest spot along the 
Seine from which its blunt towers and its delicate 
fleche are visible, until one comes full upon its 
glory from the Place Saint-Michel, or, crossing 
the Pont de la Cite, steps out upon the Place du 
Parvis — that is fine enough, impressive enough in 
all conscience. But there are twentj^ secret routes 
by which one may steal upon it, circuitous ways 
through shabby quarters and narrow old streets, 
where light scarcely filters and air is a dispensable 
luxury, where, suddenly, through a rift in the 
close-packed dwellings, the great Gothic bulk 
bursts upon the view. 

The most favourable promenade leading to such 
a climax is through that ancient section on the 
left bank of the Seine, lying between the Boule- 
vards Saint-Michel and Saint-Germain and along 
the quais, taking by preference the Rue Saint- 
Severin, which leaves on the right hand a charming 
bit of architecture to be taken up later, and con- 
tinuing a few steps through the Rue Galande one 



72 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

finds, on the left, a mere narrow passage leading, 
through the debris of recent demolition and 
roughly boarded through most of its length, to 
the Quai de Montebello, a little street of very 
ancient flavour called the Rue Saint-Julien-le- 
Pauvre. From the opening of this " ruelle " is 
perhaps the most striking vista in all Paris — the 
contrast between the poverty of the neighbour- 
hood and the splendour of the Gothic structure, 
and at the same time the affinity between them is 
fraught with material for reflection. 

We are here, suddenly, all within the epoch; 
there is nothing between us and the Xlllth cen- 
tury, while there is much that is earlier. Just 
here, perhaps, more than anywhere else, may one 
absorb the spirit of the antiquity of Paris, else- 
where blotted out by the intensity of its elan vital. 
It tells, with a conviction born of the actual visual 
proof, of things in a process of evolution. 
Through a gateway which might lead to a dis- 
used stable, so shabby and neglected it is, one 
enters a paved courtyard with an old well, the 
whole dilapidated and in the possession of heed- 
less tenants, partly enclosed by an unkempt frag- 
ment of the rampart of Philippe Auguste. 

We are here, then, on the border of the Xllth 
century town, before the desecrated, but still 



VISTAS: UNDER THE CATHEDRAL 73 

treasured, wreck of a church contemporary with 
the cathedral, and probably finished first — the 
church Saint- Julien-le-Pauvre from which the 
ruelle takes its name. A church brilliant in the 
Middle Ages, degraded, deimded, abbreviated in 
the successive centuries, but still conserving an 
unique message for archaeologists as representing 
the precise moment when Gothic architecture suc- 
ceeded Roman. We shall come back to it after 
a study of Notre-Dame shall have whetted the 
appetite for such abstractions, but for the moment 
it serves as another point of vantage from which 
the great cathedral looms majestic. The sacristan 
is always ready to open the north door, in the 
side of the little church, which used to communi- 
cate with the old Hotel Dieu when Saint- Julien- 
le-Pauvre degenerated into a mere chapel for the 
inmates of that institution, and from which Notre- 
Dame is again superbly seen across the river — 
radiant as some gkn*ious flower. 

The Seine widens above the ile de la Cite, and 
from both banks, coming back from the direction 
of the Gare de Lyon, the magnificent apse of the 
cathedral is boldly drawn against the sky. There 
is a viewpoint from the Pont Sully, which crosses 
the extreme end of the ile Saint-Louis, and forms 
a link between the Boulevard Saint-Germain and 



74 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

the Boulevard Henri IV, which leads on to the 
Bastille, from which the full force of the choir 
and apse with their flying buttresses is deeply 
impressive. 

But there is more charm in a quiet prowl along 
the northern side of the peaceful ile Saint-Louis, 
the Quai de Bourbon, and the Quai d'Anjou, lost 
in contemplative reverie before those exquisite 
XVIIth century hotels — Lauzun and Lambert — 
when, rounding the end of the smaller island and 
passing along the Quai de Bethune, one comes 
suddenly and directly upon the round point of 
the apse, from the length of the Quai d'Orleans, 
looking across an arm of the river which sep- 
arates the two islands. Again there are no dis- 
turbing elements, there is nothing to subtract 
from the perfection of the presentment. But I 
assure you it takes the breath away. 

There are times of day and seasons more 
favourable than others to a study of effects upon 
the character of Notre-Dame. At mid-day by a 
fine summer sun, its outhnes are accentuated by 
strong shadows, and the great western portail as- 
sumes the depth and vigour of a masterly litho- 
graph. Through the enveloping gray of an 
Indian summer morning the majesty of its forms 



VISTAS: UNDER THE CATHEDRAL 75 

and the abundance of its detail melt and flow to- 
gether with the sympathy of a charcoal rendering. 
Or by moonlight, in the solitary Parvis, when all 
detail is lost and only the great general masses are 
discernible as deeper, softer notes in the vast sil- 
houette, one can best submit to the power of its 
architecture. 

Of the Gothic cathedrals of France each has its 
special beauty and originality. Le Mans is cele- 
brated for its prodigious choir, Rouen for the 
immense variety of its accessories, Chartres for its 
glass, its belfrys, its porches, and the originality 
of its details, Bourges for its unique crypt, 
Amiens for its unequalled nave, while the splen- 
did portails and marvellous sculpture made the 
reputation of Rheims and of Notre-Dame. 

The great cathedral, such as we see it to-day, 
dates in part from the reign of Louis VII, le 
Jemie, or what is more important, from the time 
of Maurice de Sully, the seventy-third bishop of 
Paris, or, in other words, from about the middle 
of the Xllth century. Pope Alexander III is 
said to have laid the first stone, in 1163, during 
the time that he was a refugee in France. To 
substantiate the truth of the contemporary ac- 
count, written by Robert of Auxerre, we know 



76 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

that on April 21, of the same year, this pontiff 
consecrated the apse of Saint-Germain-des-Pres 
" with the assistance of twelve cardinals." 

As early as the IVth century, however, the 
Christians, before the reign of Clovis, the founder 
of the monarchy of the Francs, and the first of 
the Merovingien kings, had erected a basilica. 
Through the Life of Saint-Marcel we know that 
a church existed before the end of the Vlth cen- 
tury, on the banks of the Seine, near the point 
of the island. But the solid ground of the present 
lie de la Cite, one must remember, is composed 
of the amalgamation of three islands, for in 
earlier times two islets lay in the bed of the 
Seine, before the point of the principal island of 
Lutece, the cradle of Paris. The " point of the 
island " then, upon which existed this first cathe- 
dral, was, roughly speaking, at about where is 
now the Petit Pont. 

This church built, as it appears, by Prudentius, 
the eighth bishop of Paris, is reputed to have been 
restored by Childebert, the third son of Clovis, 
who figures in the annals of the time as the king 
of Paris, and the most prominent of the reigning 
monarchs of the Francs. 

The obscurity of the narrations of this period of 
the history of that delightful territory known to 



VISTAS: UNDER THE CATHEDRAL 77 

the ancients as Gallia, the remoteness and variety 
of the sources of available information, leave the 
reader much agreeable scope for imagination — 
written also as are these old chronicles with a 
naivete altogether delicious. 

Bounded by the Rhine, the Alps, the Pyrenees, 
and the ocean, the country was exposed to per- 
petual invasions and colonized by numerous tribes 
and peoples. Fabulous as are the contemporary 
narratives, it becomes clear that amongst the 
usurpers who struggled for possession of Gallia, 
the Francs, albeit not the most civilized, became 
in time a powerful race, establislied themselves in 
a large territory extending from Gallia Belgica 
to the river Somme, and made the city of Treves 
their capital. 

Under the rule of the succession from a more 
or less mythical common ancestor, called Merovee 
— or Meerwig, or Meerwings (warrior of the sea) 
— the Francs had extended their conquests to the 
banks of the Loire at the time (about 481) that 
Clovis, at the age of fifteen years, became king, 
succeeding his father, Childeric, expulsed by his 
subjects, the Salic Francs camped in and about 
Tournai, the old Civitas Nerviorum of Ct^sar. 

Childeric upon expulsion had fled to Thuringia, 
and in his place his former subjects had adopted 



78 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

as their ruler Siagre, or Syagrius, son of Gilles, 
the last of the Roman governors. In the fifth 
year of his reign, Clovis, a youth of twenty, aided 
by a kinsman prince, made war upon his father's 
former possessions, put to death Syagrius, and 
conquered his people, thereby laying the corner- 
stone of the realm over which he was soon to be- 
come sole ruler. It was in thus uniting the scat- 
tered petty kingdoms of the Francs and making 
himself their king, that Clovis founded the Mero- 
vingien Dynasty — the name derived from that of 
the common ancestor. 

Christianity was brought into Paris in the 
Ilird century — or thereabouts. But until Clovis 
the rulers of the Francs were still pagans, or 
heretics, mostly Arians, who denied the consub- 
stantiality of Christ. Clovis, in the eyes at least 
of Gregoire de Tours, our chief authority, owed 
much of his successful domination of the Francs 
to the support of the clergy, who at the time held 
supreme moral influence over the people. The 
bishops preferred Clovis, who as it appears was 
without strong convictions, to the Arian princes, 
his rivals, who presented to the doctrines of 
Christianity an invincible opposition. 

Gregoire de Tours would have us believe that 
it was the bishops and the clergy placed under 



VISTAS: UNDER THE CATHEDRAL 79 

their orders who nationalized this prince of the 
Sahc Francs and his family. This would explain 
the intimate alliance which existed between the 
successors of Clo\as and the ministers of the 
church. Though the murders, pillages, and ex- 
actions of all kinds practised and instigated by 
these bellicose kings of the Merovingien Dynasty 
often bruised the harmony of their relations with 
the bishops, the damage was never irreparable. 
Long penances, or even the moments which pre- 
ceded the death of a monarch, expiated the violence 
and rapine of a lifetime of Hbertinage. 

Clovis' conversion to Christianity resulted from 
his marriage to Clotilde, a Burgundian princess. 
Though of a line of Arians Clotilde was a Chris- 
tian. She was a granddaughter of Gondioche, 
king of the Burgundians. At the death of this 
monarch, following the custom of the times by 
which an elder son had no material advantage 
over a younger, his realm was divided amongst 
his four sons, whereupon Gondebaud, the eldest, 
in order to simplify the succession and augment 
his own power and possessions in Burgundy, 
killed his brother Chilperic — Clotilde's father — 
drowned his wife — Clotilde's mother — and exiled 
the two daughters, of whom the elder, Crone, 
became a nun. Later Clotilde, despite the out- 



80 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

rage she had suffered at his hands, was received 
into the household of Gondebaud, who, by an in- 
difference which seems only natural in view of 
what had already transpired, left her free to pur- 
sue the religion of her choice. 

It was to Gondebaud, then, that Clovis, acting 
upon the advices of his ambassadors, applied for 
the hand of his niece. This favour the king, more 
from fear than inclination ('' plutot par crainte 
que par inclination") says Gregoire de Tours, 
granted, and the young princess, whom the am- 
bassadors had reported " aussi sage que belle," 
was escorted to the kingdom of her future hus- 
band, where she became his wife, notwithstanding 
the fact, says the chronicler, that Clovis had al- 
ready, by a concubine, a son, whose name was 
Thierry. 

The narrative now becomes exceedingly naive. 
Clotilde's sole concern in this marriage, we are 
told, was the conversion of her husband to the 
true faith. Their union was soon blessed with a 
son, Ingomen, whom, in defiance of all tradition 
to the contrary in the house of the Merovingiens, 
Clotilde had baptised. As the infant died soon 
after baptism, Clovis attributed his death to that 
ceremony, and reproached the queen, who never- 



VISTAS: UNDER THE CATHEDRAL 81 

theless, nothing daunted, baptised their second 
son, Clodomir, upon his arrival on the scene. 
History threatened to repeat itself. The child 
fell ill and Clovis " groaned and cried," but the 
queen, " foreseeing the bad effects of a second 
loss of this nature " upon the cause to which she 
was devoted — more as a matter of policy than 
from any interest in her baby, the narration al- 
most implies — " prayed to God, and He reestab- 
lished his health." 

Clovis, upon this proof of Divine power, was 
expected to turn Christian, but he resisted and it 
was not until a full three years after his marriage 
that his conversion was accomplished. Clovis at 
this time (496) was engaged in a war against the 
Germans at Tolbiac. At first the Francs were 
badly beaten and there was great carnage. Clovis 
invoked his pagan gods in vain, and finally hav- 
ing proven their impotence (" ayant eprouve que 
scs Dieux n'avoicnt nulle puissance") he, in his 
extremity, bethought him of Jesus Christ, the son 
of the living God, of whom Clotilde had so often 
spoken; he invoked him and asked his help, prom- 
ising to become a Christian if he would grant him 
a victory. The pact was made. Clovis had 
scarcely finished speaking, says the chronicler, 



82 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

when the German king lost his life, and the 
soldiers of the enemy, seeing that their leader 
was dead, submitted to Clovis. 

Clovis, returning victor, related to the queen 
how her God had aided him in his peril, and she, 
profiting of the occasion, sent secretly to Remi, 
the bishop of Rheims, who presented himself at 
the court and effected the conversion. Clovis de- 
clared himself convinced but feared that his sub- 
jects would never willingly give up their idols. 
What was his surprise, says the narrative, when 
appearing before them he found that the miracle 
was accomplished, for they cried : " Nous abandon- 
nons ces Dieucp mortels, o Roi pieua:, ^ nous 
fomines prets de fuivre ce Dieu im/mortel que 
Remi annonce." 

The good news was carried to Remi, who, 
" trembling with joy," commanded that the sacred 
bath should be prepared. This was done with 
ceremony and magnificence. Clovis came to the 
baptismal font, and the sainted prelate said to 
him : '' Baifer humhlement la tete, 6 Sicamhre! 
Adorez de que vous avez hrule, et brulez ce que 
vous avez adore." Thus was Clovis, the founder 
of the Merovingien Dynasty, baptised and 
anointed — thus were church and state united. 

Besides the king more than three thousand of 



VISTAS: UNDER THE CATHEDRAL 83 

his army were baptised that day as well as Albo- 
flede and Lantilde, the sisters of Clovis. 

When Clovis died at Paris, in 511, he was in- 
terred in the basilica of Saint-Peter and Saint- 
Paul, which he and Clotilde had built as a monu- 
ment to his victory over the Visigoths, upon the 
summit of a mount at whose base was the ancient 
palace of the Cssars — the Palais des Thermes. 
Some centuries later this church became known 
as Sainte-Genevieve. 

If Clotilde worked throughout her life with 
great singleness of purpose towards the establish- 
ment of her religion in the royal house to which 
she was allied, Clovis was no less constant to his 
dominating passion, that of becoming sole and 
absolute ruler of Gaul. It seems therefore al- 
most a tragedy that upon his death the unity 
which he had established should have had to be 
disintegrated. 

Clovis left four heirs: Theodoric or Thierry, 
the offspring of his concubine, and Clodomir, 
Childebert, and Clotaire, the fruit of his union 
with Clotilde. At this epoch, as indeed during 
the whole of the Middle Ages and much later, 
bastardy was looked upon neither as a blot nor 
as a reason for exclusion from inheritance. Clovis 
was himself a bastard, a fact which had not pre- 



84 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

vented him from succeeding to the paternal kingly 
rights. Thierry, then, shared in equal portions 
with his three brothers, and received, amongst other 
properties, Rouergue, Auvergne, Querci, " et les 
deuoo Germanies," and was also allotted the cities 
of Metz, Toul, Verdun, Rheims, and Chalons- 
sur-Marne, choosing Metz for the capital of his 
estates. Clodomir established himself at Orleans, 
Clotaire at Soissons, while Childebert united in 
his portion Senlis and Meaux and, like his father, 
made Paris his place of residence. It is difficult 
to establish the boundaries of these four divisions 
of Clovis' kingdom, but it is certain that the part 
including Paris had several prerogatives over the 
others. \ 

The history of these Merovingien monarchs is 
but war and rapine, but Childebert, mingling with 
his crimes a certain piety, figures not only as the 
founder of the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres 
— first dedicated to Saint-Vincent and Sainte- 
Croix — but also, in gratitude for his recovery 
from an illness, as some say, rebuilt the church 
of Prudentius to accord with the increase of the 
population of Paris and the consequent growth 
of the congregation. 

Fortunat, who lived soon after, describes with 
the enthusiasm of an eyewitness the glories of 



VISTAS: UNDER THE CATHEDRAL 85 

this work of Childebert. His De Ecclesia Pari- 
siaca tells in poetic fashion of a basilica whose 
walls were splendidly supported by columns of 
marble, of magnificent glass in the windows, of 
an altar facing the east, and of the effect of 
Aurora creeping through those eastern windows, 
waking the inward fires of the floor, the walls, and 
the roof, which shone by their own light before 
being visited by the sun. And it is Fortunat who 
tells us that the church was the gift of the pious 
king Childebert to a beloved people. " Devoted 
with his whole soul to the service of God," his 
poetic fervour allows him thus to exaggerate, " he 
has added new riches to the inexhaustible treas- 
ures of the church. Veritable Melchizedek of his 
time, at once priest and king, he shows himself a 
perfect servitor of religion." 

We learn by a deed of the year 860 that the 
cathedral of Paris bore the name of Saint- 
Etienne,^ the first martyr. The Abbe Lebeuf, 
who has left so careful an account of the churches 
of Paris, is certain that this church was composed, 
at some time later than the reign of Childebert, 
of two edifices, one the Basilica of Notre-Dame 
and the other the Basilica of Saint-Etienne. And 
Gregoire de Tours in speaking of a fire which, in 

' Saint-Stephen. 



86 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

586, reduced all the houses of the lie de Paris to 
ashes, says that only the churches were excepted. 
This plurality of churches in the Cite can only 
mean those which formed the cathedral, and of 
which Saint-Etienne was the oldest, being often 
in these early records referred to as the Senior 
Ecclesia. 

There is reason to believe that the Normans in 
their raid upon Paris, in 857, burned the church 
dedicated to the Virgin, but spared Saint-Etienne 
for its ancient dome, for the preservation of which 
they had been paid a sum. It was in Saint- 
Etienne that was held the famous Concile de 
Paris in 829. 

The companion church, Notre-Dame, which 
stood beside Saint-Etienne on the north side, and 
which had been destroyed by the Normans, was 
rebuilt in a grander style to accord with the lat- 
ter, and having thus been repaired lasted as long 
as the earlier edifice, which had suffered only 
trifling accidents. We read that Etienne de Gar- 
lande, an archdeacon of the Xllth century, made 
many restorations and that the Abbe Suger, the 
famous builder of Saint-Denis, gave to the church 
a beautiful glass window. Several bits of this 
stained glass given by Suger appear to have been 
preserved in the northern rose window of the 



VISTAS: UNDER THE CATHEDRAL 87 

transept, and other fragments existed until the 
middle of the XVIIIth century, when the glori- 
ous coloured windows were taken out and replaced 
hy modern designs in transparent glass in order 
to lighten the churcli. (!) 

The kings of the Capetien Dynasty, whose 
palace, replacing the dwelling of Julian the Apos- 
tate, stood upon the site of the present Palais de 
Justice, went often to this church, and called it 
the nova ecclesia, to distinguish it from Saint- 
Etienne. When the bishop of Senlis came to 
Paris in 1041 to have confirmed a charter, he 
found King Henri I at the grande messe of the 
Pentecost, and Louis le Jeune is known to have 
come frequently in the following century. 

This nova ecclesia was the first to be sacrificed 
to the handsome construction contemplated by the 
bishop Maurice de Sully, when about the year 
1160 he undertook to make the two churches one. 
Its foundations were preserved and upon them 
were raised the new sanctuary and choir. The 
senior ecclesia was allowed to exist some fifty 
years longer, until standing in the way of the 
aisles to the south it was also demolished, having 
stood about six hundred years. In its destruction 
important relics were uncovered: among others 
" three teeth of John the Baptist, an arm of 



88 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Saint- Andre, and several stones from the martyr- 
dom of Saint-Etienne." 

When, in 1847, the Place du Parvis was dug 
up, to put down sewers, several substructures of 
the basilica of Childebert, buried perhaps for ten 
centuries, were discovered, their foundations con- 
fused with those of several houses of the Roman 
epoch, which had surely been razed to make way 
for the cathedral. At this time, giving substance 
to Fortunat's verses, parts of mosaic in small 
cubes of different coloured marbles, which one 
supposed had served as paving to the nave of 
Saint-Etienne, came to light, and more important 
still were exhmiied the remains of three columns 
of marble from Aquitaine, a country of ancient 
Gaul, as well as a large Corinthian capital in 
white marble, which had all the character of 
Merovingien sculpture. These fragments have 
been erected in the large Salle des Thermes, 
joining the Hotel de Cluny, where they may be 
studied close at hand. The most perfect of the 
three columns has been finished by the placing, or 
perhaps the replacing of the Corinthian capital, 
and from this may be judged somewhat the size 
and importance of the ancient cathedral from 
which they come. 



CHAPTER V 
THE ANCIENT CITE 

From so clean-swept a preface as is the present 
Place du Parvis of Notre-Dame, all the patine of 
time has been scraped away. In early days the 
great cathedral, hemmed in on all sides by low- 
built, gable-end dwellings, dominated a nmltitude 
of little churches and chapels, camped within the 
circumference of its great shadow. 

Old engravings picture the cathedral rising 
supreme between its cloisters on the one hand and 
the imposing mass of the Episcopal Palace on 
the other, while the ancient Parvis — the terrestrial 
paradise — an intimate narrow strip of clear space, 
was further hedged in by the massive structure 
of the original Hotel-Dieu, which occupied the 
strip of greenery on the right side of the Place 
du Parvis, now dedicated to the statue of Charle- 
magne, and, bridging the Seine, took root on both 
island and mainland. The cloisters were entered 
by the little Porte Rouge, which still exists, and 
growing close to the cathedral, forming a pro- 
longation of its architecture, occupied all the 



90 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

space to the left; now marked by the Rue du 
Cloitre Notre Dame. From remotest times the 
bishops of Paris had for official residence a vast 
edifice standing between the cathedral and the 
southern arm of the Seine. High towers gave it 
the effect of a feudal castle, and extensive rooms 
served for great ecclesiastical assemblies. A 
small street or passage separated Notre-Dame 
from the Episcopal Palace. 

All about Notre-Dame was grouped a con- 
ventual population — monks, priests, abbots, friars, 
canons, capuchins, choristers, beadles, nuns— be- 
longing not only to the cathedral but attached to 
the numerous dependances and chapels. The 
Place du Parvis was a scene of continuous ac- 
tivity, of comings and goings, the atmosphere 
charged with the perfumes of censers, the air 
vibrant with the music of quaint chimes, or the 
hum of the great bourdons of Notre-Dame, all 
life seemingly drawing upon the big church as 
the source of animation, itself the pivotal point of 
this little universe. 

The priests of the fifteen parochial churches 
clustered about the parent edifice were in those 
early times obliged to come to Notre-Dame daily 
to read the breviary, for, according to Sauval, be- 
fore the invention of printing the divine office 



THE ANCIENT CITE 91 

for each day in manuscript was to be found 
chained to the first pillar each side of the nave 
for the convenience of the priests who had not 
means to own such expensive books. 

Projecting back several centuries, one sees 
Paris as a small mediaeval city, having grown but 
little beyond Casar's Lutetia, its churches and 
houses crowded upon the island, or grouped close 
to the right and left banks of the river, the vast 
bulk of Notre-Dame emphasized and exaggerated 
by the dwarfish proportions of its environment. 
Such bridges as at this early date spanned the two 
arms of the river, joining the island to the main- 
land, were so covered with shops and houses as to 
conceal completely their identity as bridges; they 
appear to be merely continuations of the streets 
which they unite. 

The Petit Pont was the first means of com- 
munication between the island of Paris and the 
mainland. It replaced one of the two older 
Roman bridges, and led to the then modern Rue 
Saint-Jacques, which followed the route of the 
old Roman road to Orleans. It was rebuilt of 
stones by the bishop Maurice de Sully, to make 
a firm passage to his cathedral and to the epis- 
copal residence, but owing to the turbulence of the 
river at this point, where it rushed through a 



92 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

narrower channel, and also we are to suppose 
because of the famous rising of the Seine which 
to this day is a constant menace to the city, the 
bridge was over and over again carried away and 
rebuilt between 1206 and 1393, when a mere 
passerelle of wood furnished a foot-bridge for 
travellers. At about this date parliament found 
an ingenious means of rebuilding the Petit Pont 
without further drain upon the public treasury. 

It seems that seven Jews, guilty of having tried 
to bring back to their faith a converted brother, 
were condemned: first, to be beaten with rods 
"on three Saturdays in three different places"; 
second, to pay ten thousand livres parisis, of 
which nine thousand five hundred should be em- 
ployed in the reconstruction of the Petit Pont; 
third, to be kept prisoner until the entire sum was 
paid; fourth, to be banished from the realm; fifth, 
to have all their goods confiscated — ce qui eut lieu 
(which was done) is the laconic terminating re- 
mark of this vicious document. 

There exist in manuscript some old Latin 
verses by a prior of the Abbaye Saint-Victor, 
called Godefroy, written during the second half 
of the Xllth century, and entitled " De Parvi 
Pontanis," which give some curious details con- 
cerning the Petit Pont at that time. Roughly 



THE ANCIENT CITE 93 

translated the story which Godefroy relates is 
this: Some men built a bridge with their own 
hands and made a convenient passage over the 
water; each built himself thereon a house, and 
from this they were called Parvi Pontins, dwellers 
on the bridge. The materials are as handsome as 
the arcliitecture. The under part is formed of 
piles and cut stones, and this solid structure is 
supported upon colunms as strong as bronze. The 
upper part is paved with stones and decorated 
with devices in gold and silver, and tlie route is 
furnished on both sides with walls high enough to 
prevent the inexperienced from falling off, but 
has also exedras (such as distinguish the present 
Pont-Neuf) from which people may see the water 
and sound its hidden depths. Some come hither 
to enjoy bathing, to refresh their limbs from the 
heat of summer. Here also is a school of ven- 
erable doctors, eminent in science as in their man- 
ners, who instruct the ignorant population. 
Happy people who have such masters ! " O hca- 
tus popuhis talium rector'um.'' 

The greater part of the little churches and 
chapels of the island were suppressed at the time 
of the Revolution, in 1791, and many were de- 
stroyed soon after. Some, however, lingered on 
serving various secular purposes until well after 



94 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

the middle of the XlXth century. Many ante- 
dated the cathedral of Maurice de Sully. 

The priory of Saint-Eloy was perhaps the 
oldest religious establishment in the Cite. The 
celebrated minister and companion of Dagobert, 
Eloy, who was artist, goldsmith, treasurer, and 
even diplomat — Dagobert employed him for 
everything — and who finally became bishop of 
Noyon and was ultimately canonized, having ob- 
tained a large estate from Dagobert, opposite the 
Palais, founded thereon a monastery which took 
his name. This monastery its founder placed 
under the invocation of Saint-Martial, bishop of 
Limoges, but it was later protected also by Saint- 
Eloy and Sainte-Aure, its first abbess, who died 
there in the plague of 666 with one hundred and 
sixty of her nuns. In the monastic church Phi- 
lippe de Villette, abbot of Saint-Denis, escaped 
from the massacre of the Burgundians by clinging 
to the altar, dressed in his pontifical robes, holding 
aloft the sacred Host. 

The enclosure of the monastery, called the 
Ceinture de Saint-Eloy, followed the lines of the 
old Rues de la Barillerie, de la Calande, aux 
Feves, and de la Vieille Draperie, all extinguished 
by the modern official buildings opposite the 
Palais, to the riffht of the Rue de Lutece. Ceded 



THE ANCIENT CITE 95 

in the Xllth century to the Abbaye Saint-Maur- 
les-Fosses, this monastery, after many vicissi- 
tudes, fell into ruins, when Monseigneur de 
Gondi, the first archbishop of Paris, gave it, in 
1626, to the Earnabites. The convents of the 
church rebuilt by this order stood until torn down 
to erect on their site the barracks of the citv. 
The portail of the church was transported stone 
for stone and applied to the Eglise des Blancs- 
Manteaux. 

Sainte-Croix was a chapel of obscure origin, 
supposed to have existed since the Vllth century 
as a hospital for the nuns of Saint-Eloy. It was 
suppressed and sold at the time of the Revolution. 

Saint-Germain-le-Vieux was originally a chapel 
dedicated to Saint-.Iean-Baptiste, built in the year 
693, but several times enlarged. It took the name 
Saint-Germain after one of the Norman inva- 
sions, during which time the abbots of Saint-Ger- 
main-des-Pres, whose enclosure stood witliout the 
walls of the city, took refuge here, and upon re- 
turning to their abbey left to the church in 
mark of gratitude an arm, or a bone from an 
arm, of their patron saint. Some authorities say 
that the body of the saint reposed here for two 
years in safety while the Normans sacked the 
abbey; others that, in the Vlth century, Ger- 



96 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

main, bishop of Paris, himself resided here, which 
explains the choice of the church as an asylum in 
the IXth century, by the religious order bearing 
his name. Saint-Martial, the choir of Saint-Eloy, 
stood to the left of Saint-Germain-le-Vieux. The 
Prefecture de Police and other municipal build- 
ings, the Quai du Marche-Neuf, and the wide 
Rue de Lutece have blotted out every trace of 
these and others of the old churches between the 
Palais of the early kings and the Rue de la 
Cite. 

Opposite Saint-Germain-le-VIeux, and close by 
the Petit Pont, stood until 1772 the Gothic por- 
tals of the two chapels of the old Hotel-Dieu, a 
striking feature of the edifice, added by Louis 
XI, who was a great benefactor of the institution. 
The origin of the Hotel-Dieu is somewhat ob- 
scure, but it is supposed to have developed from 
a hospital founded in the year 660 by Saint-Lan- 
dry, a bishop of Paris, and dedicated to Saint- 
Christophe. Philippe Auguste built the first 
structure which bore the name Hotel-Dieu and 
Saint-Louis augmented considerably the work of 
his predecessor. Philippe Auguste gave the 
name, Salle Saint-Denis, to the first ward. Queen 
Blanche of Castille added the Salle Saint-Thomas, 
and her son, Saint-Louis, gave the Salle Jaune 



THE ANCIENT CITE 97 

with two attendant chapels along the banks of 
the river. 

In 1217 the chapter forbade making doors to the 
Hotel-Dieu for fear thieves would take refuge 
there. This recalls a curious act passed by the 
Council of Orleans under King Clovis in the year 
511, which shows the importance of the place 
occupied by the clergy in relation to the Francs 
converted to Catholicism. The acts of this as- 
sembly throw too bright a light upon the times to 
which they refer to be passed over in silence. The 
first law passed by the council provided for the 
complete safety of any person taking refuge in 
any church or in the house of a bishop. 

The first canon of this council is perhaps worth 
quoting in full. It reads: '' qu'il est dcfendu de 
tircr par force, et de livrer les homicides, les adul- 
ter es, et les voleurs qui se seront refugics dans 
les asiles des cglises ou dans la maison d'un 
eveque. II est cgalement dcfendu de remettre 
ces coupahles entre les mains de quelque personne 
que se soit, si, au prealahle, elle n'a promis a 
Vcglise, en jurant sur les saints evangiles, que 
les coupahles ne seront j^oint punis de mort, de 
mutilation de memhrcs, ni d'aucun autre peine 
afflictive. Ces memes coupahles ne seront point 
rcmis entres les mains des plaignants avant tran- 



98 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

saction. Si quelquun, dans les circoji stances ci- 
dessus enoncees, viole le. serment quit aurait fait 
a Veglise il sera tenu pour excommunie ; les clercs 
et les la'iques s'abstiendront d'aucune communica- 
tion avec lui. Enfin, si quelque coupahle, in- 
timide par le refus que ferait sa partie de com- 
poser avec lui, se sauve de Veglise oil il ctait 
refugie, et disparait, la susdite partie ne pourra 
int enter aucune action contre les clercs de Veglise., 
a raison de cette menie evasion f' 

Now the canons of Notre-Dame owned one- 
half of the Hotel -Dieu and the Bishop of Paris 
the other, so that the hospital, by a slight stretch 
of the old law of Clovis, miglit have been con- 
sidered the house of the bishop and consequently 
a place of refuge for malefactors. Be that as it 
may, the great doors of the Petit Pont were not 
built until the reign of Louis XI, as was wit- 
nessed by tlie pedestrian figure of this king in 
one of the gables. 

In the reign of King Robert, about 1005, 
Renaud de Vendome, the jDresiding bishop of 
Paris, presented the canons with his half of the 
Hotel-Dieu and in 1099 Bishop Guillaume gave 
them also the Eglise Saint-Christophe, which seems 
to have stood facing the Parvis to the left of the 
hospital. 



THE ANCIENT CITE 99 

Though the revenues of the institution appear 
to have been large, its resources were so restricted 
that the inmates, sick and well, are described as 
sleeping together upon the insufficient beds. Ac- 
cordingly, the good bishop JVIaurice de Sully, 
who was called the father of the poor, had passed 
a statute in the year 1168 providing that there- 
after the beds of each deceased bishop and canon of 
the chapter of Notre-Dame, with their furnishings, 
should become the property of the Hotel-Dieu. 

Under JNIaurice de Sully the clergy still lived in a 
state of exemplary simplicity, their beds were 
simply fashioned and simply furnished and were 
considered quite suitable for hospital service; but 
as luxury crept into the surroundings of the ad- 
ministrators of the Hotel-Dieu, it was considered 
sufficient that each should leave, in place of his 
sumptuous couch, the sum of one hundred livres, 
a substantial consideration for those days. This 
served until 1592, when the secular directors of 
the hospital brought to the attention of parlia- 
ment the fact that the poor were losing heavily 
by this lax application of the original statute, 
and claimed that " le del, Ics rideaua\ Ic loudier, 
la coiirtepointe, S^ autres accompagncmcuts des 
lifs des Chanoines" (the canopy, curtains, drap- 
eries, coverings, and other accompaniments of tlie 



100 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

canons' beds), whether of silk, silver, gold, or any 
other fabric or material which luxury had added 
to the austere customs of the century of Maurice 
de Sully, should be theirs. This demand was ac- 
corded and in consequence upon the death of Mon- 
sieur de Gondy, archbishop of Paris, his creditors 
were condenmed to deliver to the Hotel-Dieu his 
bed and all the appurtenances thereof. 

The famous Salle du Legat, whose noble renais- 
sance gable, besides the Gothic portals of the 
chapels, made the chief beauty of the construction, 
stood near the Petit Pont, and was founded by 
Antoine de Prat, the ambassador of Pope Clement 
VII. Owing to the restrictions of space a large 
hall was built upon an arch spanning the river, 
described as a feat of engineering in its day. 
(Cette voute est un des plus hordis Ouvragcs de 
cette espece.) And this hall communicated with 
the wing of the building which stood upon the 
left bank of the Seine, and whose recent demoli- 
tion opens up that glorious vista of the cathedral 
from Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre. And it now be- 
comes clear how this little church became in times 
of stress the chapel for the Hotel-Dieu, and was 
thus saved from the vandalism of tlie Revolu- 
tionists. 

Old writers describe the original little Place du 



THE ANCIENT CITE 101 

Parvis Notre-Dame as embellished by a fountain 
in the centre and planted opposite the portal of 
the Hotel-Dieu (until 1748) a large statue in 
stone, supposed by several savants to have been 
Esculapius, the god of medicine, by others 
Erchinouald, a former mayor of the Palais, in the 
reign of Clovis II, and who according to Fauchet 
etoit affectionne a I'endroit des Ecclefiastiques (§ 
Prctres. A tradition ran that he had not only 
aided Notre-Dame but that he had furnished 
Saint-Landry with the funds for the construction 
of the hosi^ital. But the scholarly Abbe Lebeuf 
states with great simplicity the now accepted 
theory, that this statue was one of those detached 
from one of the porticoes of the old cathedral 
(Saint-Etienne) and that, though greatly disfig- 
ured by exposure to the elements, it represented 
Jesus Christ holding the book of the Gospel and 
grafted upon the ancient Law, personified by 
a figure of Aaron or David, serving as a base. 

Behind the cathedral was the Terrain, a garden 
for the use of the canons of Notre-Dame, whose 
houses were enclosed within the cloisters by a chain 
of old walls. An old pla7i de tapisserie, preserved 
in the collections of the Bibliotheque Nationale, 
shows Saint-Denis-du-Pas tucked in behind the 
cathedral and upon the border of the Terrain. 



102 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Sainte-Marine and Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs and 
Saint-Landiy occupied sites on the north side of 
the cathedral. Saint-Landry, founded before the 
Xllth century, perpetuated the pious souvenir of 
the bishop who founded the Hotel-Dieu; it was 
built upon the bank of the river where according 
to tradition had been the oratory of this saint. 
From 1171 it was apportioned to the chapter of 
Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois. Rebuilt in the XV th 
century, it was suppressed by the Revolutionists, 
sold and demolished in 1792. 

The ancient Rue du Chevet led under the choir 
of this church to the Rue Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs, 
on the eastern side of which was a church of that 
name, a name commemorated in the figures of 
two bulls in relief which ornamented the door of 
the church. This was the Capella-Sancti-Petri- 
de-Bobus, mentioned in the bull of Innocent II 
(1136). The church was that in which Herman 
de la Fosse, converted to Paganism by his clas- 
sical studies, attacked the Host, in 1503, and pro- 
claimed the worship of Jupiter, for which his 
tongue was branded with a hot iron, his hand cut 
off, and himself finally burned alive. After the 
execution, so runs the tale, as an expiatory pro- 
cession was passing, two cows, being led to the 
butcher, knelt before the sacrament. The church 



THE ANCIENT CITE 103 

was sold at the time of the Revolution, and de- 
graded to all sorts of secular use. It stood until 
1837. Its famous door was applied to the western 
entrance of Saint-Severin. 

Sainte-Marine, upon an impasse of the same 
name, was still upright, though unrecognizal)le, in 
1866. One of the oldest churches of the island 
(it dated from the Xlth century), it served as 
parish for the personnel of the hishops' palace 
and the court, and was the church in which the 
free unions of the people were solemnized by 
enforced marriage. Dubreul relates the well- 
known history of the straw ring with which the 
curate of Sainte-Marine performed these cere- 
monies, enjoining the couples to live in peace and 
amity to the honour of their parents and to save 
their souls from the consequences of their sin and 
offence. 

Near the Pont-Neuf was Saint-Denis-de-la- 
Chartre, an old church built probably after the 
incursions of the Normans, upon the supposed 
site of the prison in which Saint-Denis was said 
to have been detained. From earliest times the 
cell of the martyr had been transformed into an 
oratory, and in the year 1015 a convent of secular 
canons was founded by the knight Ansolde and 
Rotrude, his wife, to the glory of Monsieur Saint- 



104 A LOITEKER IN PARIS 

Denis. The church was curious in that, according 
to antique usage, it had within its enclosure two 
distinct parishes, one in the nave and the other 
in the aisles. Suppressed and sold at the time 
of the Revolution, it was completely altered hut 
stood until 1866. 

At the end of the street — Rue de la Pelleterie — 
which opened opposite Saint-Denis-de-la-Chartre, 
stood Saint-Barthelemy, after Notre-Dame the 
most important religious edifice of the city. At 
first a simple chapel, founded and endowed by the 
Merovingien kings, it became the Eglise Royale, 
the parish church of the Palais. Hugues Capet 
gave to it the relics of Saint-Magloire. At the 
time of the Revolution it was undergoing im- 
provements and in its unfinished state was seized 
by the mob and disposed of as a theatre and dance 
hall. It stood opposite the Grand' Salle of the 
Palais, and its remains were demolished to make 
way for the new Tribunal of Commerce. Philippe 
Auguste was baptised in the chapel of Saint- 
Michel, situated between the Rue de la Barillerie 
(Boulevard du Palais) and the court of the Sainte- 
Chapelle, upon which it had its entrance. It dis- 
appeared in the widening of the street. 

A door from Sainte-Magdelene when the last 
vestiges of this old church were demolished was 



THE ANCIENT CITE 105 

applied to the presbytery of Saint- Sever in. 
Sainte-Magdelene was an ancient chapel of 
Saint-Nicolas, built in the reign of Louis VII, 
in 1140, on land formerly belonging to an old 
synagogue. Enlarged from time to time, the 
synagogue itself was transformed into a church 
by order of Philippe Auguste, and took the name 
Magdelene in 1461. From the Xlllth century 
the curate of this parish bore the title of Archi- 
pretre, which gave him certain supremacies over 
the other curates of the diocese, and the little 
church was also the seat of one of the old con- 
fraternities, called la grande Confrerie de Notre- 
Davie, aux Seigneurs, Fretres, &^ Bourgeois de 
Paris. At the time of its demolition, 1794, it 
embraced the parishes of Saint-Leu, Saint- 
Gilles, Saint-Christophe, and Sainte-Genevieve- 
des-Ardents. 

The Revolution did its work so well that 
scarcely a trace remains to recall the existence of 
the innumerable chapels and churches which 
formed the surroundings of the cathedral, making 
of the island a completely harmonious frame for 
the greater edifice. What we see now is not even 
the first generation of buildings which replace 
those of antiquity. The Prefecture de Police 
occupies the older Caserne de la Cite, or municipal 



106 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

barracks, rising sombre and forbidding on the west 
side of the Place du Parvis, facing the great 
facade. The modern Hotel-Dieu, on the south 
side of the same space, is even less agreeable to 
the eye. It replaces the Hopital des Enfants 
Trouves, whose erection cost the destruction of 
many picturesque churches. 

What the Revolution had left standing of the 
old regime, the insurrection of 1831 stamped out 
thoroughly and finally. The Episcopal Palace 
which had withstood the former tragedy was 
ruined by the later disaster, and one of the most 
gorgeous of spectacles, the pompous entry of a 
bishop into the city, was forever done away with. 

Under Roman dominion Paris was comprised 
in the fourth lyonnaise or division of imperial 
Gaul, whose centre was the metropolis of Sens. 
The first religious districts were determined by 
the old political boundaries, and thus the first 
Parisian prelates had only the title of bishop 
while the seat of the archbishop was at Sens. It 
was Louis XIII, who, in 1622, obtained from 
Pope Gregoire XV the establishment of an arch- 
bishopric at Paris. 

The entry of a new bishop into the diocese of 
Paris was accompanied by magnificent ceremonies. 
A distinguished delegation consisting of aldermen 



THE ANCIENT CITE 107 

and other officers of the city, headed by the pro- 
vost of merchants, advanced without the walls of 
the city as far as the Abbaye Saint-Victor (the site 
now covered by the Halle aux Vins) to meet the 
incoming prelate. The bishop mounted a white 
horse and the cortege proceeded to the Eglise 
Sainte-Genevieve within the walls and here his 
procurcur fiscal called in a loud voice for the vas- 
sals of the bishopric, whose duty it was to carry 
the prelate's chair. Two of the kings of France, 
Philippe Auguste and Louis IX, owned certain 
lands by which they became vassals to the bishop 
under the law, were liable to officiate in this capacity, 
but were replaced by knights of their house. Four 
barons, preceded by the abbe and monks of Sainte- 
Genevieve, carried the bishop to the Rue Neuve 
Notre-Dame, before the Petite-Sainte-Genevieve — 
Sainte-Genevieve-des-Ardents — and here the abbe 
presented the prelate to the dean and canons of 
Notre-Dame and these conducted him to the 
cathedral. 

At the threshold of the cathedral the incumbent 
took the oath of office, swearing upon the Gospels 
to conserve the privileges, exemptions, and im- 
munities of the church of Paris, and upon posses- 
sion followed a solemn mass, after which the bishop 
was conducted to his palace, where he gave a ban- 



108 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

quet to all those who had witnessed the ceremony. 

Little by little it was all destroyed, the pomp 
and grandeur disappeared, and in the upheaval 
of 1831 the palace was sacked by a furious mob 
who made short work of it and its treasures. An 
eyewitness ^ describes the work of destruction: 
"All at once they tore out the grills and ramps 
of the stairways, undermined the walls, split the 
ceilings, threw out of the windows marbles, wood- 
carvings, mirrors, furniture. A troop of bar- 
barians made a chain from the bibliotheque of the 
palace to the parapet of the quay, and precious 
books and manuscripts passed from hand to hand 
and were tossed into the river. This was accom- 
plished amidst savage chants and howls, while a 
sacrilegious mob formed about the enclosure a 
grotesque procession clad in sacerdotal habits. 
Thus were the archbishops of Paris despoiled of 
their ancient dwelling." 

Before the destructions of the Revolution Paris 
possessed at least as many churches as does Rome 
to-day. The city, including its faubourgs and 
suburbs, counting chapters, parishes, abbeys, 
priories, monasteries, communities, chapels, and 
leper hospitals, contained over three hundred eccle- 
siastical establishments. The XVIIIth century 

* M . F. de Guilhermy: Itincraire Archvologique de Paris, 



THE ANCIENT CITE 109 

commenced by the demolition of several churches in 
the Cite and the suppression of a number of con- 
vents, but under the radical measures of the 
Revolution churches and monasteries were alien- 
ated to the profit of the state or adapted to public 
service, while speculators parcelled off the land 
and cleared away the monuments of antiquity. 

To-day the number of religious institutions is 
reduced to considerably less than one-third the 
former number, and of these only about thirty 
churches antedate the XVITIth century, while 
not more than a dozen can be considered as be- 
longing to the INIiddle Ages or the Renaissance. 



CHAPTER VI 
NOTRE-DAME 

It was, then, into such an already thrilling 
environment of narrow streets, picturesque 
churches, and monastic dwellings that Maurice de 
Sully, fired with the ambition to build for pos- 
terity, introduced his unrecorded architect — who 
erected the oldest existing parts of the great 
cathedral. 

The plan which the bishop undertook to exe- 
cute was scarcely inferior to what we see to-day, 
though most of it has been effaced, and it is only 
above the great arches of the choir and apse that 
the semi-Roman church of Maurice de Sully re- 
veals itself in its original purity, while the door 
dedicated to Sainte-Anne, despite its adaptation 
to a later fa9ade than that for which it was in- 
tended, is an eloquent relic of the original design 
and serves to tie together the story of the 
builders. 

In those days the construction of such vast 
edifices as Notre-Dame was sometimes under- 
taken at the two extremities, so that the facade 



NOTRE-DAME 111 

was often contemporary with the apse. The 
cathedral at Saint-Denis was thus undertaken (an 
inscription once marked the point where the two 
ends grew together) and this seems also to have 
been the case with Notre-Dame. 

The first stone of the cathedral was laid in the 
reign of Louis le Jeune by Pope Alexander III 
during his exile in Paris, in 1163, and the build- 
ing was so far advanced during the first nineteen 
years, that shortly after Philippe Auguste be- 
came king (in 1182) the high altar was conse- 
crated, and three years later Heraclius, the 
patriarch of Jerusalem, come to Paris to preach 
the third crusade, officiated in the choir. Before 
the high altar Bishop Maurice had interred the 
bodies of Geoffrey Plantaganet, comte de Bre- 
tagne, son of Henry II of England, and Philippe 
Auguste's queen, Isabelle de Hainaut. 

Upon the death of this bishop, in 1196, the 
apse was finished and the nave well under way. 
His will provided a legacy of five thousand livres 
to make a lead roof to the choir. 

Except for such fragmentary traces of Roman 
construction of which one has spoken, the monu- 
ment, such as it stands, belongs to the first two 
periods of Gothic architecture, the lanceoJe of 
Philippe Auguste and the rayonnant of Louis 



112 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

IX, while nothing in the construction antedates 
the second half of the Xllth century. 

The great western front, as it was reconceived 
by the successor to Maurice's architect, was not 
begun until the end of the episcopacy of Pierre 
de Nemours (1208-1219). That the work went 
rapidly we know, for at about the time of the 
death of Philippe Auguste (1223) the great 
front was practically finished, while every aspect 
of the chef-d'oeuvre confirms the opinion that this 
superb portail was the conception of one mind 
carried through from the base of the elaborate 
entrances, lying closest to the eye, to the point 
where the severely simple towers begin to detach 
from the mass, under the enthusiasm of a single 
artistic impulse. And of the genius that con- 
ceived it we know, alas, nothing; but, says Victor 
Hugo: " L'homme, Vartiste, Vindividu s' efface sur 
ces grandes masses sans nom d'auteur, Vintelli- 
gence humaine s'y resume et s'y totalise. Le 
temps est architect, le peuple est le ma^on." 

His successor, with less indifference to fame, 
inscribed in handsome letters upon the base of 
the southern portail of the transept his name and 
date. The legend reads that in 1257, on the 
second day of the ides of February, Master Jehan 
de Chelles commenced this work in honour of the 



NOTRE-DAME 113 

mother of Christ. Then reigned Saint-Louis, and 
Renaud de Corbeil occupied the episcopal chair. 
It has been thought that from the second half of 
the Xlllth century, also, dates the arcade above 
the Virgin's gallery of the older front, and that 
the north front, the Porte Rouge, of the ancient 
cloisters, and, within, the chapels each side of 
the transept are of the same epoch and perhaps 
by the same architect, since the style, the char- 
acter of the sculpture, and even the stone are the 
same. 

The side chapels of the nave were not included 
in the original plan — the early cathedrals, 
Chartres, Rheims, Saint-Denis, etc., were not de- 
signed to carry chapels along the nave — but Jean 
de Paris, archdeacon of Soissons, dying about 
1270, left one hundred livres tournois ^ for the 
construction of the lateral chapels, which seem 
all to be contemporaneous. The chapels of the 
apse were a little later, dating from the end of 
the Xlllth and beginning of the XlVth cen- 
tury. An inscription affixed to the pedestal of 
a monument to Bishop Simon Matiffas de Buci, 
formerly at the entrance to the chapel of Saint- 
Nicaise, relates that this chapel with the two 

^ The coins minted at Tours were inferior in value, and weiglit, 
to the so-called parisi.'>\ made in Paris. A livre parisis was worth 
about one-fourth more than a livre tournois. 



114 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

following was founded by that prelate in 1296, 
and that afterward were made successively all the 
others around the choir. This inscription, so 
precious to archaeologists, lay for years forgotten 
in the cellars of Saint-Denis, where so mam^ relics 
saved from the vandals of the Revolution were 
hastily housed. 

Notre-Dame is in the form of a Latin cross, 
with two great blunt towers towards the west 
and a restored spire at the point of the inter- 
section of the branches of the cross. Impressive 
from all angles by the imposing vigour of its mass, 
it is the monumental fa9ade, the western portail, 
which contains the most stirring message, repre- 
senting, as one author has said, the Xlllth cen- 
tury in its most marvellous portrait. 

Popular tradition relates that as it first ap- 
peared Notre-Dame stood upon an elevation 
above the Parvis and that its western face was 
preceded by a flight of thirteen steps — the num- 
ber is variously stated — whose masonry made for 
the cathedral an admirable base, and more than 
one writer has described in moving language the 
" sea of Paris paving " rising and devouring one 
after another the treads of its pedestal. That 
this was not the case was proven by the excava- 
tions made in 1847 about the base of the edifice 




Plioto AUnari 



THE AECATURE SUSPENDED BETWEEN THE TOWERS. 
DETAIL. NOTRE-DAME. 



NOTRE-DAME 117 

when nothing was discovered to bear out the tale. 
M. Guilhermy, whose careful description of 
Notre-Dame was prepared in collaboration with 
Viollet-le-Duc, the architect of the restoration, 
thinks that it is probable that these steps, of 
which so many authors speak without having ever 
seen them, existed on the side of the south tower 
and that they descended towards the river. 

The great portail divides into three parts in 
width and five in height, the horizontal line being 
strongly emphasized, as is characteristic of early 
Gothic, the five stories graduated with utmost 
taste and skill from the intricate elaboration of 
the three grand portals to the austerity of the 
square towers without spires. 

Below, the three large Gothic doors, with their 
deep embrasures, pointed tympanums, columns, 
pillars, and piers all richly sculptured and peo- 
pled with symbolic and historic figures, make 
the first of the horizontal divisions. The statues 
on the niches formed by the buttresses between 
the doors and upon the ends are restored; they 
represent Saint-Etienne to the north, Saint-Denis 
to the south, and, between, two women's figures 
usually identified as personifying the Church and 
the Synagogue and readily distinguishable — the 
Church, proud and triumphant, holds her head 



118 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

erect with her eyes fixed upon Christ — the Syna- 
gogue, humiliated and vanquished, her head 
dropped and her eyes bandaged. The Church, 
coiffed with a diadem, holds up the cross and 
the chalice — the Synagogue lets fall her crown, 
the tables of the law, and her broken standard. 
The subject is familiar to the student of Gothic 
churches and is found in glass and in stone at 
Chartres, Saint-Denis, Rheims, Bourges, Lyon, 
and many other churches of the Xlllth and 
XlVth centuries. 

Ornate bands of sculptured leafage frame the 
lower picture and separate definitely the lower 
portion of the fa9ade from the gallery of kings. 
This wide band of upright figures was demolished 
during the Revolution, for though the twenty- 
eight effigies were supposed to represent the 
kings of Israel and Judea, and as ancestors of 
the Virgin sacred personages, tradition said that 
they were portraits as well of the early kings of 
France, which made them the legitimate prey of 
the Revolutionists, and so they were torn from 
their niches and destroyed. These effigies were 
restored under Viollet-le-Duc. 

Above the band of kings extends the Virgin's 
Gallery, a wider plane bordered at the top by a 
rich band of leaf moulding, which makes the 



NOTRE-DAME 119 

finish of this earhest portion of the fa9ade. It 
divides definitely into the three parts indicated 
by the three doors of the ground floor, and the 
towers with the space between of the upper 
stories. Here are five sculptured figures (re- 
stored) — in the centre a group composed of the 
Virgin, carrying the Infant, flanked by two an- 
gels holding candlesticks, to the left Adam and 
to the right Eve. The restorations are by 
Dechaume, Chenillon, and Fromanger. At the 
time of the mutilation of the cathedral and 
buildings in general, a small sane minority stood 
out for the preservation of works of art, and a 
provisional museum was installed in the convent 
of the Petits-Augustins as an asylum for rescued 
statues and monmnents. The original figure of 
Adam, a work of the XlVth century, was 
amongst the rescued, and though badly mutilated, 
still exists, in the storerooms at Saint-Denis. 
The figure is entirely nude and of curious work- 
manship. 

Behind the group of the Virgin and angels the 
simple tracery of the early Gothic rose occupies 
the centre of this story, building up from the 
wide Porte du Jugement, its gorgeous colouring 
illuminating all the front part of the nave. This 
central window is balanced by groups at the sides 



120 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

consisting of smaller blind roses in stone held in 
the opening between pairs of double-pointed win- 
dows, which carry the composition of the lateral 
entrances. Large, ornamental trefoils in stone 
fill the corner spaces of these divisions. 

We now come to the end of the work of that 
mysterious early architect, whose name has not 
come down to us, for here, in the slender arcade 
of pointed arches, in elaborate and beautiful 
carving, archfeologists see a new beginning, dat- 
ing from about the time that Jehan de Chelles 
commenced the south front. It is at this story 
that the two massive towers begin to disengage 
themselves from the general mass of the fa9ade, 
the break being skilfully veiled by this exquisite 
arcature, which, suspended between the towers in 
a double file, continues around their four sides, 
tying them together by a delicate tracery of ele- 
gant lines, and at the same time screening the 
abruptness of their detachment. Where the 
arcature encounters a buttress, the columns and 
pointed arches are no longer disengaged but lie 
close upon the stone. 

A balustrade cut in open quatrefoils binds the 
top of the arches, and it is upon this balustrade 
that perch the replicas of those celebrated birds, 
demons, and monsters that legend has made so 



NOTRE-DAME 121 

famous. Many of the originals in falling had 
left their claws gripped to the parapet. 

A slight difference in the width of the towers 
reveals itself upon attentive observation, giving 
them a rather interesting irregularity. Such un- 
important inequalities are not uncommon; whether 
the result of accident or design in this case is 
not known. Many things may have decided this 
difference. The towers, which are of equal 
height, at first appear identical, but looking 
closely one sees that the south tower is perceptibly 
more slender than its companion; the difference 
shows not only in the entire bulk but in the width 
of the pairs of pointed windows, and is more 
definitely stated in the gallery of the kings, where 
the space between the buttresses below the north 
tower accommodates eight of the effigies while the 
corresponding space below the south tower is 
filled by seven. 

The Revolutionists destroyed, as we have seen, 
the gallery of kings and tore from the doors and 
niches every symbol of royalty, meanwhile re- 
specting the sacred personages of the archivolts 
and tympanums. Now an act of the municipal 
council, issued in the month Brumaire, An. 2, 
condemned also the saints. The very portail 
itself trembled upon its foundations; but these 



122 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

were droll times, and the quickest wit triumphed. 

In the face of so much opposition, worked 
valiantly a secret band of friends of the beautiful, 
and those who stood for the preservation of the 
statues resorted to clever artifices to obtain their 
ends. 

Since it was useless to appeal to the old faith 
of the populace (" reason " having taken the place 
of religious belief and sentiment) scientific argu- 
ments were urged, and the citizen Chaumette, the 
chief magistrate of the Commune, got the ears of 
his fanatical colleagues by telling them that the 
astronomer Dupuis had found his planetary sys- 
tem in one of the lateral doors of the cathedral. 

Their ignorance was as prodigious as tlieir 
hate was strong and without stopping to question 
the probability of this statement, Dupuis was 
clapped upon the committee for the administra- 
tion of public works, with power to save the 
monuments worthy to be known to posterity. 
His intervention saved what was left. Chaumette 
was guillotined within the year. 

Since the outbreak of " our " war the ascent to the 
towers has been forbidden, and at present writing 
the little door in the north tower has a forbidding 
aspect as though permanently closed. But as life 
resumes its normal routine no doubt the revenue 



NOTRE-DAME 123 

coming in from visitors to the towers if not less 
material considerations will restore the ancient 
privilege. Not only is the view of Paris well 
worth the mount, but the impression to be gained 
of the colossal proportions of the building itself by 
a walk through the towers, the terraces, and gal- 
leries is not to be missed. In the upper stories are 
vast vaulted chambers, and in each tower at the 
height of the Virgin's gallery is an immense room, 
where liglit pouring through the double-pointed 
windows, seems to magnify the forms of the archi- 
tecture. In a corner of each of these rooms is a 
remarkable stairway, walled up in a tower of stone, 
pierced by narrow slits of light. 

The bells had formerly a great reputation ; there 
were seven in the north tower and six in the central 
tower of the transept, while the two largest, called 
the bourdons of Xotre-Dame, were placed in the 
south tower. The name of course is derived from 
the great resonance of such bells, whose quality 
resembles the droning of a bumble-bee. 

The smaller of the two bourdons was destroyed 
but Notre-Dame preserves the larger and more 
harmonious. It weighs thirty-two milliers. A 
long Latin inscription tells its history in relief on 
the metal. The bell was a gift of Jean de Montaigu 
(brother of Gerard, a bishop of Paris) , in 1400, and 



124 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

was called by him Jacqueline after his wife, Jac- 
queline de La Grange. Recast in 1686 the bell was 
rebaptised Emmanuel-Louise-Therese d'Autriche, 
in honour of Louis XIV and Marie-Therese of Aus- 
tria, the original quantity of metal being more than 
doubled by the chapter. 

Though to the architects of the restoration it 
was evident that the cathedral had been designed 
and prepared to carry steeples of stone upon its 
towers, Viollet-le-Duc and his collaborator de- 
cided against the addition, thinking that the 
edifice would gain nothing by completing a design 
which its builders had left unachieved. As Guil- 
hermy points out in his treatise upon the ])uild- 
ing, nothing in the construction showed that 
means lacked to carry the work to completion, 
and if the architect of the Xlllth century 
stopped at the spires, it is likely that he himself 
condemned his first project. 

Between the towers is a large reservoir con- 
taining water for immediate use in case of fire. 

Behind the arcature, between the towers, rises 
the gable of the nave, upon whose point stands 
the figure of an angel, sounding the trumpet, 
which is contemporary with the facade, its shel- 
tered position having preserved it from all harm. 
Standing far enough back from the edifice one 




rhom AJinnri 



NOTRE-DAME. 

MONSTERS AMONGST THE TOWERS. 




I'holo AUitari 



MONSTERS AMONGST THK TOWERS. 
.NOTRR-DAME. 



DEATH OF THE VIRGIN. 
APSE OF KOTRE-DAME. 




I'ltulo AUnari 



NOTRE-DAME 127 

can see the angel upon the point of the gable; 
and beyond, rising from the intersection of the 
cross, the foliated fleche, of wood covered by lead, 
(a restoration by Viollet-le-Duc) may be seen 
between the towers, giving the aerial line which 
relieves the monotony of the horizontals. 

There are six doors to the cathedral, including 
the little Porte Rouge of the cloisters, the small- 
est but by no means the least interesting. The 
great central door is called the Porte du Juge- 
ment, that beneath the north tower the Porte 
de la Vierge, that under the south tower the 
Porte Sainte-Anne, The Porte Saint-Etienne is 
the entrance to the southern facade; the Porte du 
Cloitre and the Porte Rouge open upon the Rue 
des Cloitres Notre Dame. Upon these doors and 
their embrasures we find the whole story of re- 
ligion, with its facts, its myths, its legends, its 
superstitions. In order to appreciate the spirit 
of the embellishment, one must put one's self 
back many centuries, one must remember the mis- 
sion of a cathedral in ancient times. 

The cathedral was the great popular movement of 
the Middle Ages ; it was not only a place of prayer 
and the House of God, but the centre of the 
intellectual movement, the repository of all the 
traditions of art and of human consciousness. 



128 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

What we place in museums they confided to the 
church. Guillaume Durand, in his Rationale des 
Divins Offices, says that in several churches they 
suspended ostrich eggs and other rare and re- 
markable objects in order that people should be 
attracted to church. In the cathedrals of Laon, 
Rheims, Bayeux, Comminges, Saint-Denis, Saint- 
Beryin, and in the Sainte-Chapelle of Paris, etc., 
were preserved skeletons of whales, stuffed croco- 
diles, horns of unicorns, claws of griffins, cameos, 
and antique vases. What we seek in books the 
populace of the Middle Ages read in living char- 
acters on the embrasures of doors, or in the glass 
of windows — it all comes back to that first mission 
of art, which was religious instruction. And that 
explains why side by side with religious scenes 
we find so many homely secular subjects, the 
whole forming an encyclopaedia of knowledge 
adapted to all and read by all. 

The Porte du Jugement deals, as its name im- 
plies, with the second advent of Christ. From 
the point of view of the religious terror, the emo- 
tional keynote of the entire portail, this door is 
perhaps the most eloquent of the six, and will 
reward the closest study — though the consensus 
of opinion awards the palm of pure beauty to the 



NOTRE-DAME 129 

Porte de la Vierge, and to the writer the Porte 
Sainte-Anne is by far the most interesting. 

The artist's conception of the Day of Judg- 
ment is simple and naive. The Christ against 
the central pillar (all restored) is represented as 
he was in mortal life, holding the Book of Life. 
At his sides range the twelve apostles accom- 
panied by the virtues which lead to Paradise and 
the vices which lead to Hell. 

Above, in the lower zone of the tympanum sits, 
in glory, the Son of God, and around him appear 
ranged after the rules of the mysterious hierarchy, 
the angels and the powers of Heaven, the glorious 
troop of the prophets, and the white army of mar- 
tyrs. Doctors and virgins complete the divine 
cortege. Under the feet of the Judge humanity 
rises from the dead at the sound of the trumpet. 
To the right hand of Christ the elect, guided by 
angels, take possession of the kingdom prepared 
for them, while to his left the rejected, conducted 
by devils, fall into the flames. The whole 
allegory is carried out in the immense detail of 
the deep soffit, or voussoir, restored after ancient 
documents and meriting long study. 

The pier, the Christ upon the pier, and the 
lower zone of the tympanum are restored, having 



130 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

been torn out — not by the Revolutionists, but by 
one of the most famous architects of the XVIIIth 
century, with the consent and concurrence of the 
chapter. We must know that the enemies of 
rehgion were not the only ones to lay violent 
hands upon the ancient beauty of the cathedral, 
but that the piety, which, at great expense, pre- 
tended to rejuvenate the edifice for the more 
practical service of the cult, did perhaps the more 
insidious mischief. 

Until the XVIIIth century the ancient form 
of the church seems to have been respected, but 
Louis XIII, actuated no doubt as much by 
vanity as by piety, began a series of mutilations 
and changes which have gone on until this day. 
The damage which he instigated affected the in- 
terior, but disastrous as it was, it was slight as 
compared to the profanation of the central portal 
undertaken by Soufflot at the demand of the 
ecclesiastical authorities. 

Each of the doors of Notre-Dame is divided 
into two valves by a pier standing in the middle 
bearing an upright figure. The idea was, in 1771, 
when the alterations were made, that processions 
and ceremonies were impeded by this pillar, which 
obstructed the doorway, itself, also, become too 



NOTRE-DAME 131 

low to admit of effective entrance. Accordingly 
Soufflot tore out the pier, with its statue of 
Christ, and the pedestal covered with curious 
reliefs. To raise the arch of the new door the 
whole of the lower part of the tympanum was 
gashed out, without respect for the beautiful 
sculpture of the Last Judgment. 

Geoffrey Dechaume, one of the ablest of the 
sculptors who worked under Viollet-le-Duc, re- 
stored the Christ of the central pillar, upon the 
models existing at Amiens and Rheims, and 
restored the second panel of the tympanum, which 
contains some of the original sculpture. The 
lower zone was replaced by Toussaint and is 
entirely modern. 

The third panel of the tympanum remains 
intact. Christ as the Judge sits on the tribunal, 
with the earth as his footstool. Two angels stand 
at his sides, showing the instruments of his Pas- 
sion, and a little behind these the Virgin and 
John, the Evangelist, kneel with hands joined 
imploring pity for sinners. The Virgin wears 
her crown, veil, robe, and mantle. Saint John is 
represented according to the tradition of the 
Latin church, as a youth, without a beard, wear- 
ing a long robe, and his feet bare. This group 



132 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

of five figures fills the point of the tympanum 
and is considered one of the chef-cVoeuvres of the 
Xlllth century. 

The voussoir of this door, in six choirs of figures, 
is one of the most important and beautiful now 
existing. To the right of Christ are the angels, the 
archangels, and the saints, while to the left, Satan 
and the devils. The demonology of Notre-Dame 
has seemingly exhausted the singular imagination 
of its creators. 

In certain lights and at a proper distance one 
can still quite clearly get the impression of the 
gold leaf and colour which once added charm to 
the doors, for we know that all this sculpture was 
once painted and gilded. Standing alongside the 
statue of Charlemagne, in the Parvis, the central 
tympanum still shows the warmth and glow of the 
effaced decoration. 

The Porte de la Vierge is considered the most 
beautiful of the entrances to the cathedral. 
Viollet-le-Duc describes it as a poem in stone. 
{" Cette porte est tout un poeme en pierreJ") 
Upon the central pier of the door is a statue of 
the Virgin, not the original — that was sent to 
Saint-Denis — but another of the XVth century, 
taken from the old church of Saint-Aignan and 
added to the door in 1818. It is dry and man- 



NOTRE-DAME 133 

nered and cold, and one sees at once that it is out 
of sympathy with the rest of the sculpture here. 
The pedestal has also lost its original reliefs and 
what we see is restoration. 

The Virgin holds in her arms the Redeemer, 
and tramples under foot the serpent, with a 
woman's head and wings, whose tail is curled 
around the trunk of the tree of knowledge. Adam 
and Eve stand one on each side of the tree, tempted 
hy the serpent; on the left side of the pedestal 
is carved the creation of Eve and on the right 
the dismissal from Paradise. This sculpture forms 
the ornate hase to the statue, while above the 
head of the Virgin is a dais, supported by two 
angels with censers. Over the dais is a little 
building covered by a similar canopy. 

This little building divides into two spaces the 
first panel of the tympanum, in which, to the right 
of the Virgin, are seated three prophets, their 
heads covered with veils, and on the left three 
kings, crowned, and all six hold a banderole with 
a meditative air. The prophets are present for 
the advent of the Messiah, and the kings as 
ancestors of the Virgin. The sculpture is re- 
markable in its realism controlled by the Gothic 
convention. VioUet-le-Duc considers these six 
figures as the most beautiful of this epoch, which 



134 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

have come down to us; the heads are expressive 
and lifehke. 

The second zone represents the entombment of 
the Virgin. In the central group two angels hold 
the extremities of the shroud and lower the body 
into a rich sarcophagus. The Virgin is young 
and full of grace, with her hands crossed upon her 
breast. Behind the coffin stands Christ in an atti- 
tude of benediction surrounded by the twelve 
apostles — at the head of the tomb, Peter, and at 
the foot, John. 

In the point of the tympanum Mary is glorified 
as the queen of angels and men. Christ shares 
her throne and has just placed upon her head a 
crown brought by an angel. Two other angels 
kneel to fill the angles of the space and hold 
towards the central group candlesticks with lights. 

The sculptor has exhausted his subject in order 
to fill the four choirs of the soffit, with historic 
personages and devices, all of which contribute 
in detail to the ensemble of the scene. A hand- 
some band of ornamental sculpture finishes the 
pointed arch of the archivolt, but in order to give 
special relief to the whole, a large moulding in 
the form of a gable outlines a depression in the 
stone, and this form springs from two small 
columns. 




I'liuto Alinari 



SATAN AND THE DEVILS. 

DETAIL FROM THE VOUSSOIB OF THE PORTE DU JUGEMENT. 

NOTRE-DAME. 




Phoio AUnari 



X.A PORTE DE LA VIERGE. 
NOTBE-DAME. 



NOTRE-DAME 137 

Four statues flank each side of the entrance, 
carrying the height and general style of the figure 
upon the middle pier. To the right of the Virgin 
is Saint-Denis between two angels, carrying his 
head, and then Constantin. On the opposite side, 
facing Constantin, is the pope, Saint-Sylvestre, 
next him Sainte-Genevieve, then Saint-Etienne 
and John the Baptist. These statues are accom- 
panied by little related figures which serve as 
pedestals, filling the triangular spaces between 
the arcade under the figures. Each one has its 
special significance and will reward close atten- 
tion. For example, under Saint-Denis is 
the figure of the executioner with his axe, 
under Saint-Etienne a man with a stone in his 
hand, under Constantin a dog and a bird to 
signify Christianity triumphing over the demon, 
etc. 

Against this wall, under the arches, are again 
little scenes in flat relief, much mutilated, which 
amplify the stories of the saints to which they 
refer. Thus, under Saint-Denis and Saint- 
Etienne, their martyrdom; under Sainte-Gene- 
vieve, the young girl, accompanied by an angel, 
receiving benediction from a hand which comes 
through a cloud, under John the Baptist, the 
executioner handing the head to the daughter of 



138 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Herodias; under the angels the conflict between 
good and bad sph'its; etc. 

The beauty and antiquity of this entrance is 
greatly enhanced by a quantity of little j^anels, 
sculptured in relief upon the two faces of the 
jambs of the door. The Earth, represented by 
a woman holding a plant in her hands, and 
Water, by a woman riding a fish and holding a 
boat, in line with the reliefs just described, are 
the keynotes of a whole composition upon these 
subjects. Above these the panels make an 
almanac in stone, figuring the signs of the zodiac 
together with the different occupations of the 
months and seasons, and trees and shrubs, carved 
with astonishing fidelity to nature. This feature, 
perhaps more than any other, makes the unique 
beauty of the Porte de la Vierge, of which every 
surface is covered with sculpture without in the 
least detracting from its simplicity. The few 
reliefs upon the side-posts of the Porte du Juge- 
ment are without importance, while the older 
Porte Sainte-Anne is austerely plain. 

The Porte Sainte-Anne, dedicated to the 
mother of the Virgin, expresses the moment of 
transition from Roman to Gothic architecture and 
has many points of interest and importance. The 
loiterer who has already visited the cathedral of 



NOTRE-DAME 139 

Saint-Denis will at once recognize the analogy 
between the general aspect of this door and the 
fa9ade of the older cathedral. This third entrance 
is thought to date, in its essential construction, 
from the Xllth century, to be contemporary with 
the apse, to be, in fine, the door which Maurice 
de Sully intended for the central portal of the 
primitive plan; while in its details it assembles 
some of the features of the earlier churches. 

During the half-century which elapsed between 
the conception of the cathedral and the building 
of the fa9ade the Roman style ceded to Gothic, 
and this door is exceedingly curious as showing 
a deliberate transformation to agree with the new 
laws of the Xlllth century. The architect under 
Philippe Auguste appears to have taken the door 
designed for the axis of the nave, and, while 
creating for his main entrance grander forms and 
richer ornamentation, to have respected the work 
of his predecessor, to have reserved for it an 
honourable place. 

As it is narrower and more slender in all its 
parts than its companion, the Porte de la Vierge, 
it has seemed to me not impossil)le that this door 
itself decided the diminished width of the south 
tower and the whole of that division of the great 
portail. This theory I advance for what it is 



140 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

worth. I have not seen it stated by any of the 
authorities on the subject of the cathedral. 

This Roman door became, then, one of the 
lateral entrances to the church, but since it was 
too low to accord with its companion, the Porte 
de la Vierge, the tympanum was raised by the 
introduction of another panel of sculpture — the 
lowest — while the round Roman arch was changed 
to the Gothic ogive by the simple building up of 
a point; while some new figures were added to 
the choirs of the voussoir, in order to fill the thus 
amplified bay. All this is done so frankly that 
it is a simple matter to see what parts of the door 
are original and which have been added. 

The stylobate with its ornaments was restored 
about 1850, the old decoration having been sadly 
damaged. Above this base in careful restoration 
one sees four statues at each side, replacing 
the originals of extreme antiquity, which were 
described by the Abbe Lebeuf, and others who 
had seen them, as having without doubt been 
relics from the old Saint-Etienne, the ecclesia 
se7iior. They are described as having been very 
flat in their modelling, as opposed to the round 
forms of the figures on the other doors, a char- 
acteristic of all the statues before the reigns of 
Pepin and Charlemagne, and are supposed to 




Photo Alinari 



DETAIL FROM THE PORTE DE LA VIERGE. 

SAINT-DENIS BETWEEN TWO ANGELS AND CONSTANTIN. 

NOTRE-DAME. 




DETAIL FROM THE PORTE DE LA VIERGE. 
NOTRE-DAilE. 




TYMPANUM OF THE PORTE SAINTE-ANNE. 
XII TH AND XIII TH CENTURIES. 
NOTRE-DAME. 



NOTRE-DAME 143 

have resembled in style and subject the figures of 
the western portail of the cathedral of Chartres. 

Lebeuf considered them as representing Saint 
Peter and Saint Paul to the left and right of the 
entrance, followed by Solomon and David (with 
the lyre), Sheba and Bathsheba as biblical symbols 
of the church, and two kings representing the 
royal genealogy of the Virgin. On the other 
hand, Bernard de Montfaucon, who engraves them 
in his Les Monuments de la Monarchie Fran^aise, 
considers the royal personages as portraits of the 
kings and queens of the ^lerovingien line, an 
argument which is much the more attractive. 

The four figures to the right, on coming out 
of the church, are Saint Peter, a king who holds 
a book and a sceptre, a queen, and another king. 
The four to the left are Saint Paul, a king hold- 
ing a stringed instrument, a queen, and a king 
holding a sceptre. Though de Montfaucon admits 
the difficulty of recognizing the portraits with 
accuracy, he conjectures that the king holding the 
violin could readily be Chilperic, who, according 
to Gregoire de Tours, made hymns and chants 
for the church, and who considered himself some- 
what of a musician. From this he divines that 
the first king, holding a book, could be Clotaire I, 
the father of Chilperic, the queen who follows 



144 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

would then be Aregoiide, his mother, and the last 
king, Gontran, the king of Burgundy, The first 
king in the next band, opposite Gontran, would 
be Chilperic, followed by one of his queens, the 
ferocious Fredegonde (who was long a refugee 
from justice in the older church) , and the last, next 
to Saint Paul, Clotaire II, son of Chilperic 
and Fredegonde, in whose reign must have 
been built this portal. In favour of this conjec- 
ture, points out de Montfaucon, only the first and 
last of these kings carried the sceptre — Clotaire I 
and Clotaire II, who were kings of Paris. 

This writer also calls attention to the nimbi 
at the heads of the royal personages, as the only 
kings' portraits thus decorated. Others wearing 
the nimbus are statues of saints. The first kings 
of France took the nimbus in imitation of the 
Roman emperors, whom they also followed in the 
form of their money. This custom of denoting 
royalty died out with the first race and at the time 
of Pepin and Charlemagne was no longer in vogue. 

This door is sometimes called Porte Saint- 
Marcel from the long slim figure against the 
dividing pier (carefully recut from the original 
preserved in the Cluny Museum). Saint-Marcel 
was the ninth bishop of Paris— he died in 436. 
His statue dates from the Xlllth century but 



NOTRE-DAME 145 

appears even earlier. The portraiture is helped 
by the fidelity of costume and accessories; he 
wears the alb, the tunicle embroidered with 
palms, the fringed stole, the round chasuble, etc., 
and is further identified by his mitre, his cross, 
and the dragon under his feet. The story of 
the serpent which took up his abode in the sepul- 
chre of a wicked woman, and which was exorcised 
by Saint-Marcel, makes one of the narratives of 
the Golden Legend. The sculptor touches lightly 
the tragedy, and aided by knowledge of the sub- 
ject one makes out the body of the woman hi her 
coffin, placed on end to fit the composition, and 
the monster with two claws and a servient's tail 
comes out of the tomb to be crushed by the saint. 
The tympanum is in three zones, of which the 
lower belongs to the Xlllth century and deals 
not too clearly with the history of Sainte-Anne 
and the Virgin, while the Roman sculpture of 
the upper panels is perfectly clear. The mar- 
riage of the Virgin is the subject of the lower 
relief. Tliat of the second takes in the whole 
story of the Annunciation, the presentation of 
Joseph, the Virgin and her cousin Elisabeth, the 
manger and the adoration of the shepherds, 
Herod, the magi, etc. Except for the figure of 
the Virgin mounting the steps of the temple, 



148 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

which is Xlllth century, all of this panel dates 
from the Xllth century. The break is the more 
noticeable because of the difference in the stone 
used. The older stone is hard and gray, while 
the other being softer has taken a darker note. 

At the summit of the tympanum the Virgin 
sits in the middle holding her Son, enthroned 
between angels. The king kneeling at her left 
offering a scroll has been identified as Louis VII, 
the friend of the abbe Suger, hero of the second 
crusade, and father of Philippe Auguste. To 
the Virgin's right stands a bishop holding, like 
the king, an open scroll. The king kneels as a 
simple layman, the bishop stands in his auality 
of pontiff. This prelate students of the subject 
identify as Maurice de Sully, the founder of the 
cathedral. Near the bishop a seated person writes 
with great attention upon a tablet the act of 
consecration of the church to the Virgin. Thus 
read, this tympanum becomes one of the most 
important and interesting historical documents in 
connection with Notre-Dame. 

The sculpture throughout is of a delightful 
quaintness and consistency. The soffit, in four 
rows, carries out the accompaniment of the story, 
as in the other doors. 

Most of the greater cathedrals credit the devil 



NOTRE-DAME 147 

with a hand in their construction. In this one we 
have him in the character of bhacksmith, for ac- 
cording to tradition the ironwork of these two 
lateral doors is the devil's handiwork. Guilhermy 
tells us that this devil forger was known to the 
quarter as Biscornette, and that savants have made 
of him an artist whose soubriquet has taken gravely 
its place upon a list of masters of tlie Middle Ages. 
The ironwork of the end doors is of the very finest 
of the Xllth and Xlllth centuries. The middle 
door having been tampered with by Soufriot is not 
of the same importance or beauty. 

The side elevations, greatly damaged during the 
Revolution and later, show much restoration. The 
Porte du Cloitre, in the north transept, opened 
upon the enclosure reserved to the canonical 
houses. All the sculpture is to the glory of 
Mary and is of fine workmanship. The south side 
resembles the north, and bears the famous inscrip- 
tion, making one line across the portal, of which 
we have already spoken: Anno . Dni . ]M . CC . 
LVII . Mense . Februario . Idus . Secundo . 
Hoc . Fuit . Inceptum . Christi . Genitcis . 
Honore . Kallensi . Lathomo . Vivente . Johanne . 
Magistro. 

The Porte Saint-Etienne, reserved to the 
bishops, opened upon one of the courts of the 



148 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

episcopal palace. It is also called the Porte des 
Martyrs on account of the personages repre- 
sented. The reliefs of the tympanum refer to the 
martyrdom of Saint-Etienne. 

The small door, opening from the third chapel 
of the choir is known as the Porte Rouge, 
from the ancient colour of its valves, and is sup- 
posed to date from about 1257. Archaeologists 
have identified the figures of the Virgin and her 
son in the tympanum as portraits of Saint-Louis 
and Marguerite de Provence, possibly the only 
effigies of these personages sculptured in the 
Xlllth century which escaped the fury of the 
Revolutionists. 



CHAPTER VII 
INSIDE THE CATHEDRAL 

In its interior the cathedral is very imposing. 
We are to picture it, however, as much more so 
in the old days when the magnificent glass of the 
original construction glowed in the nave and 
choir, throwing all the vaulting of these parts into 
mysterious obscurity, adding a wealth of colour 
and of strong geometric pattern to the openings 
illuminated as by sacred fire. The three rose 
windows are all that remain to speak for the price- 
less treasures of former times. 

Until 1741 the glass was intact, and one ex- 
pects of course to hear that the vandals of the 
Revolution are to blame for its suppression, 
which has so completely altered the aspect of the 
church. Not so. The destruction of the ancient 
glass was with the concurrence of the chapter, 
another of those acts of despoliation undertaken 
by the ecclesiastical authorities with the idea of 
rejuvenating the monument, of making it more 
accessible to practical devotion; the same spirit 
which during the first half of the XVIIIth cen- 



150 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

tury lost us one after another the ancient features 
of the choir, its Gothic stalls, its rood-loft, the 
screen of the round-point, the antique high altar, 
its tombs, the funeral stones of the nave, choir, 
and chapels, and which culminated in the desecra- 
tion of the Porte du Jugement, as we have seen. 

Pierre Levieil was the maker of the modern 
windows, and, says Guilhermy, the '' destructeur 
patente de vitraux anciens" And it is to his 
account of the miserable business that we owe 
some of the precious information concerning the 
early glass. He recounts that he was commis- 
sioned to remove the glass of the nave and choir 
of Notre-Dame and to replace it with white glass 
decorated with ciphers and symbols and flowered 
borders. This phlegmatic Philistine relates with 
calmness that he thought that most of the win- 
dows which he took out dated not later than 1182, 
and that some of it resembled the glass of the 
chapels of the apse of Saint-Denis, and was un- 
doubtedly that given by the abbe Suger. 

But after all Notre-Dame preserves from the 
general disaster, by rare good fortune, the most 
splendid part of the glass — the three roses of the 
three great portails, intact still and unsurpassed. 

Each rose completes the story of its portail. 
To the west, the full effect broken by the intru- 



INSIDE THE CATHEDRAL 151 

sion of the organ pipes, the story concerns the 
patron of the temple. The Vh-gin occupies the 
central compartment, and in the widening circles 
about her are the twelve prophets, the signs of 
the zodiac, etc., the whole full of symbolism and 
history, worthy of exhaustive study. Above the 
Porte du Cloitre, the window is consecrated to 
the life and miracles of Mary. The south rose, 
corresponding to the Porte des Martyrs, presents 
in four circles the choir of the apostles, an army 
of bishops, saints, and angels. The three roses 
are considered contemporaneous with the facades 
which they complete and decorate. Everything 
proves it — their unity of style, the similarity of 
execution, the intimate relation in choice and 
composition of subject. Considered purely and 
simply as geometric designs, of concentric circles, 
in jewel-like colours, they fill the observer with 
profound emotion, with rich satisfaction and joy. 
The whole church, now so bare of historic 
memorials, was formerly paved with sepulchral 
stones, similar to the few contemporary relics 
to be seen at the Cluny Museum, and history 
was written large on the floor of nave, chapels, 
and choir, where one could read inscriptions and 
study effigies of the most illustrious personages of 
church and state. " It was a moving and solemn 



152 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

spectacle," says a contemporary writer, " to see 
all these dead planted till the day of judgment." 
The architects of Louis XIV were first to dis- 
turb the sepulchres of the choir, to substitute for 
tombs of bishops and grandees of the earth a 
mosaic whose rich texture was without significa- 
tion, and merely a distraction for the eye. From 
1771 to 1775 all the ground of the nave, aisles, 
transept, and collateral chapels of the chevet was 
repaved with great slabs of blue and white marble, 
an operation which cost more than three hundred 
thousand livres besides destroying innumerable 
stones engraved with effigies in intaglio — a floor- 
ing, in fact, perhaps comparable to the glorious 
paving of the cathedral of Siena to-day. 

Guides are never lacking to thrust upon one 
information regarding the superficial treasures of 
the sacristy and the chapels. The latter are seen 
with difficulty and are not particularly interesting. 
Some, however, are by famous sculptors. Against 
the pillar to the left of the choir is a statue of 
Saint-Denis by Nicolas Coustou, one of the great 
sculptors under Louis XIV. It is simple, im- 
pressive, and beautifully modelled. Against the 
opposite pillar is a Gothic statue of the Virgin, 
of the XlVth century, held in high veneration 
by the faithful. In the Chapelle Sainte-Made- 



INSIDE THE CATHEDRAL 153 

leine is a kneeling statue of Archbishop Sibour, 
who was murdered by an abbe in the church 
Saint-Etienne du Mont, by Dubois, the sculptor 
of a more famous Jeanne d'Arc, at Rheims. In 
the Chapelle Saint-Guillaume is a theatrical 
monument to General d'Harcourt, by Pigalle, an 
miportant sculptor of the XVIIIth century— 
but the composition is scattered and the group 
lacks unity. 

Great destruction was done to monuments to 
bishops and nobles at the time of the Revolution, 
and of all those of bishops, once so numerous at 
Notre-Dame, there remains but one effigy in mar- 
ble, that of Simon Matiffas de Buci, who died in 
1304. This is a recumbent figure in full costume, 
with a jewelled mitre, collar, necklace, etc., and 
a lion sleeping at the feet, in characteristic 
Gothic style, mounted upon a suitable pedestal. 
It lies at present directly behind the Pieta, in 
the ambulatory. 

The treasure of Notre-Dame was greatly cele- 
brated for its magnificence. Bishops, kings, and 
illustrious personages of state loaded it with 
precious objects. The Revolutionists fell upon 
it with fantastic fury and greed and its contents 
were swept to the four winds. When the cult 
was reestablished the government restored some 



154 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

objects which had been preserved as rarities. The 
troubles of 1831 menaced again the little that 
had escaped the former havoc, but little by little 
it has grown again in importance. Its chief 
treasure is of course the crown of thorns brought 
here from the Sainte-Chapelle. 

The choir and ambulatory have kept some of 
the sumptuous decoration given it by Louis XIV 
in execution of the wish of his father, Louis 
XIII, who, in 1638, having put his kingdom 
under the protection of the Virgin, pledged him- 
self to reconstruct the high altar of the cathedral 
with an image of the Virgin holding in her arms 
her Son, descended from the cross, and at her 
feet a statue of himself offering his crown and 
sceptre. 

Louis XIII died before carrying his vow into 
effect, and Louis XIV undertook to accomplish 
it for him some fifty years later. Begun in 1699, 
interrupted by the preoccupations of war, and 
rebegun in 1708, the transformation of the choir 
was not completed until one year before the 
death of the monarch. Royal ambition and 
human egoism were manifestly served under the 
guise of filial devotion and piety. The beautiful 
jnhc, or rood-loft, was taken out ostensibly to 
open the sanctuary to a more intimate relation 



INSIDE THE CATHEDRAL 155 

with the faithful, but at the same time the mani- 
fest advantage was a better view of the royal 
gifts and portraits. The same reasoning seems 
to apph' to the destruction of the round-point of 
the choir-screen, which was enck)sed by hand- 
some grills. 

To the scheme of sculpture proposed by his 
father, Louis XIV added naturally a portrait 
statue of himself, so that the Virgin, holding the 
dead Christ, was flanked by figures of Louis 
XIII kneeling on her left, offering his crown 
and sceptre, and of Louis XIV on her right in 
identical pose without the crown and sceptre. 
For this work the king employed the three most 
celebrated sculptors of his reign, Coyzevox and 
his pupils, Nicolas and Guillaume Coustou. The 
group of the Virgin is by Coustou aine, the 
statue of Louis XIII by his brother Guillaume, 
and for the statue of himself Louis le Grand 
reserved the master Coyzevox. 

The sculptural decoration was continued by the 
addition of eight bronze angels, two upon the 
angles of the altar and three each side of the 
Pieta against the pillars of the apse, modelled by 
Cayot, Vancleve, Poirier, Hurtrelle, Nagnier, 
and Anselme Flamen. The antique high altar, 
with its shrines and brass columns, was torn down 



156 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

to give place to a more magnificent design, with 
reliefs made by Vasse. Twelve Virtues in relief 
above the modernized arcades of the round-point 
were made by Pouletier, Fremin, Le Pautre, 
Lemoine, Bertrand, and Thierry. Du Goulon 
was charged with the sculpture of the two 
bishops' pulpits, of beautiful woodwork and en- 
riched by ornaments and bas-reliefs, and of the 
choir-stalls, which replaced the ancient Gothic 
seats of the canons, their backs covered with re- 
liefs from the life of the Virgin and the New 
Testament. Above the episcopal pulpits and the 
stalls were placed eight large paintings in 
gorgeous frames, painted for the choir by Halle, 
Jouvenet, Fosse, Boulogne le Jeune, and An- 
toine Coypel. The subjects were: The Annun- 
ciation of the Virgin, the Visitation, the Nativity, 
the Adoration of the Magi, the Presentation of 
Christ in the Temple, and the Assumption. 

Old writers describe the altar as of great mag- 
nificence. It was made of Egyptian marble, cut 
in the form of an antique sarcophagus, decorated 
on all sides by cherubim and other rich orna- 
ments in gilded bronze. Between the two figures 
of adoring angels, upon the angles, was a raised 
portion in white marble, carved with an oval 
relief by Vasse, and upon this elevation stood the 




Phulo Alinari 



GOTHIC STATTTE OF THE VIRGIN. 
INTERIOR NOTRE-DAME. 



XIVTH CENTURY. 



XiriTH CENTURY SCULPTURE 
FROM THE CHOIR-SCREEN. 
NOTRE-DAME. 
SLAUGHTER OF THE 
INNOCENTS AND FLIGHT 
INTO EGYPT. 




I'ltoto Alinari 




Pholu Ahnari 



THE AMBULATORY. NOTRE-DAME. 



INSIDE THE CATHEDRAL 159 

great crucifix and six large silver candlesticks of 
superior workmanship. Three circular steps of 
Languedoc marble preceded the altar, and the 
sanctuary itself was approached by four steps in 
similar material, bordered by a superb balus- 
trade in marble and gilded bronze, magnificently 
chiselled. 

The high altar, with all its accessories, was 
destroyed for the second time, in 1793, when the 
cathedral became a Temple of Reason, and Made- 
moiselle Maillard, attended by her priestesses, 
supernumeraries of the opera, was adored as the 
Goddess of Reason, a la place du ci-devant sacre- 
ment! 

The altar which one sees to-day was built in 
1803. Its Christ before the tomb, in gilded 
bronze, founded upon the design of Vancleve, 
comes from the Chapelle des Louvois in the old 
church of the Capucines of the Place Vendome. 
The cross and six chandeliers belonged, before 
the Revolution, to the cathedral of Arras. 
The beautifully chiselled bronze lectern dates 
from 17.55 and is signed Duplessis, founder to the 
king. 

For many years the statues of Louis XIII 
and Louis XIV, rescued at the time of the Revolu- 
tion, were housed in the modern sculpture rooms of 



160 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

the Louvre, but they have been put back in the 
sanctuary in an effort to restore as far as possible 
the beauty of the choir. Amongst the many his- 
toric monuments which perished during the 
Reign of Terror was the equestrian statue of 
Phihppe le Bel. A writer in 1736 relates that 
the chapel to the Virgin having just been recon- 
structed " with much magnificence and at the 
expense of the cardinal de Noailles, archbishop 
of Paris," one saw opposite this chapel the eques- 
trian statue of Philippe le Bel. " It was thus 
mounted," continues our scribe, " that this king 
came to render thanks to God and to the Virgin, 
for the victory which he had gained over the 
Flemish at Mons-en-Pevle, 18 August, 1304." 
A colossal statue of Saint Christopher, standing 
against a pillar near the western entrance, dated 
from 1413, and was the gift of Antoine des Es- 
sars, chamberlain of Charles VI. It was de- 
stroyed by the chapter in 1786. One finds con- 
stant allusions to this statue which, recalling the 
patron of the Hotel-Dieu, had many admirers. 
Coryat,^ writing in 1611, says: "I could see no 
notable matter in the cathedrall church, saving 
the statue of Saint Christopher, on the right hand 
at the coming in of the great gate, which is 

' Crudities. 



INSIDE THE CATHEDRAL 161 

indeed very exquisitely done, all the rest being 
but ordinary." 

The zeal of Louis XIV in the embellishment 
of the sanctuary did not stop with the destruction 
of the ancient interior of the choir, but, as we 
have seen, tore away its picturesque rood-loft to 
open a view from the nave, and extended even to 
the partial demolition of the choir-screen, of 
which there remains but a remnant. The work 
is exceedingly curious, consisting of a frieze of 
stone figures, painted and gilded, and in its en- 
tirety told the complete story of Christ, before 
and after the Resurrection. The series was so 
arranged that the cycle, which began at the east 
— or at the centre of the round-point of the 
apse — passed along the north side of the choir to 
its western extremity, was continued on the lec- 
tern, where the Passion, Crucifixion, and Resur- 
rection were pictured in front of the congrega- 
tion, and concluded in a series of panels moving 
from west to east back to the point of departure. 

The handsome grills introduced by Louis' 
architect were erected at the sacrifice of the be- 
ginning and end of the series, presumably the 
Annunciation and the Ascension. The earlier 
work, on the north side of the choir, unfortu- 
nately at the darkest part of the ambulatory. 



162 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

begins with the Visitation and carries the story 
in an unbroken chain to the Agony in the Gar- 
den. The latter series on the south side takes up 
the narrative after the Resurrection and carries it 
from the meeting of Christ and Mary Magdalen 
to the farewell to the Disciples, before the 
Ascension. 

The work evidently was a long time under 
way, and by artists of very different calibre. The 
earliest fragment is vividly conceived and exe- 
cuted with great force and virility, as well as 
surprising realism. One has no need whatever 
of the ministrations of the officious guide with his 
fatuous explanations, for nothing could be clearer 
than this imagery of the story of Christ. It has 
besides all the touching simplicity of the Gospel 
itself, and breathes the spirit of the Xlllth cen- 
tury. The exact date of execution is not known. 

The artist of the later scenes, however, left his 
name in an inscription, which has disappeared, as 
Jehan Ravy, who for twenty-six years conducted 
the building of Notre-Dame, at the end of which 
time the series was completed under his nephew, 
Jehan le Bouteiller, in 1351. There is a distinct 
falling off in the technique and inspiration of 
these later reliefs. The sculptor, departing from 
the continuous scheme of his distinguished prede- 



INSIDE THE CATHEDRAL 163 

cesser, has divided his subjects into panels, sep- 
arated by columns, and made a more elaborate 
finish to the frieze, in keeping with his thinner 
style. Everything is to the advantage of the 
early, unknown sculptor. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE BASILICA OF CLOVIS: 
SAINTE-GENEVIEVE 

When Paris was confined to the ile de la Cite 
it had for defence a thick wall and for moat the 
hed of the Seine. The Petit Pont, replacing an 
ancient Roman bridge, was the earliest means of 
exit from the Cite to the left bank of the river and 
led the way to the Route d'Orleans, itself a Roman 
road dating back to the time of Caesar. This 
bridge must have been in constant use by the Ro- 
man emperors and governors in coming and going 
between the primitive city of Lutece and the 
Palais des Thermes, without the walls. 

Regarding this first wall of Paris, history is 
obscure, but we know that the Grand and the 
Petit Chatelets were the development of the ancient 
gates of Lutece. The Grand Chatelet, or Porte 
de Paris, of which there now remains merely the 
site and the name bestowed upon a place and a 
theatre, was reputed to have been an old cliuteau 
built in the time of the Romans, of which in the 
XVIIIth century there still remained several old 



SAINTE-GENEVIEVE 165 

towers incorporated in a modern construction 
(1684) enclosing several prisons and a famous 
torture chamber. A vaulted passage under the 
fortress served as egress from the island to the 
right bank of the river. The Petit Chatelet 
guarded the approach to the Cite on the site now 
called Place du Petit Pont. It was an antique 
fortress composed of a massive quadrangular 
castle with round towers on the side towards the 
Seine, under which passed a vaulted passage, 
closed by a heavy gate which served as the second 
Porte de Paris. 

Both Grand and Petit Chatelets served as 
official residences for the provost and vicomte of 
Paris, as seats of justice, and as prisons, the lat- 
ter, says cheerfully an old writer, ordinaire ment 
hien garnie. The passage under the Petit Chatelet, 
thougli dark and narrow, according to the early 
descriptions, was the most frequented entrance to 
tlie die. Destroyed by the Normans, it was re- 
built in 1369 under Charles V in the form familiar 
through engravings. By an old custom the clergy 
of Notre-Dame walked here in procession annually 
on Palm Sunday and liberated one prisoner. 
After the capture of Paris by the Burgundians, 
in 1418, there was a general massacre of the pris- 
oners, which included at the time the bishops of 



166 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Bayeux, Evreux, Constances, and Senlis. The 
picturesque old buildings of the Petit Chatelet 
were pulled down in 1782. 

Without the walls, on the left bank of the 
Seine, extended a vast prairie, on the outskirts 
of which stood the ancient palace of the Ceesars, 
adopted as a royal residence by the kings of the 
first race in France. This palace in the course 
of time, instead of commanding a Roman camp, 
became a sort of centre between the two first 
faubourgs of Paris, built both on the rive gauche, 
the one, Saint-Pierre (later Sainte-Genevieve), 
upon the rise of land where now stands the 
Pantheon, and the other, Saint- Vincent et Sainte- 
Croix, nearer the river (later Saint-Germain-des- 
Pres). 

The great Clovis built the basilica of Saint- 
Pierre, or of the Saints-Apotres, as Gregoire de 
Tours usually names it, as a monument to his 
victory over the army of the Visigoths ; Childebert, 
son of Clovis, second king of Paris, gave the other 
and grander church to enshrine the trophies of 
his victories in Spain. 

The steep and winding Rue de la Montagne- 
Sainte-Genevieve leads through one of the most 
characteristic bits of old Paris, from the Boulevard 
Saint-Germain at the Place Maubert, to the site 




Photo Alinari 



STATUE OP SAINTE-GENEVIEVE. XIII TH CENTURY. 
FROM THE ANCIENT EGLISE SAINTE-GENEVIEVE. 
NOW IN THE LOUVRE. 



SAINTE-GENEVIEVE 169 

of the church of Clovis. One may approach it 
directly from the cathedral by crossing the Pont 
ail Double, taking the Rue Lagrange to Place 
Maubert, and thence, across the boulevard, by 
ascending the narrow Rue de la Montagne-Sainte- 
Genevieve. 

The quarter, despite the heavy domination of 
the Pantheon, the modern temple to the saint, 
built by Louis XV, and the alien library which 
preserves the books of the old abbey, keeps much 
of its primitive tone. We shall come back to it, 
in a later chapter, for Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, 
its chief existing interest; but for the present 
there is still standing the tower of the old Sainte- 
Genevieve, with its Romanesque base, enclosed 
within the precincts of the Lycee Henri IV, which 
occupies part of the buildings of the ancient a])bey, 
while the quiet Rues Clotilde and Clovis guard the 
memory of the founders. 

After the death of Ck)vis, his queen, Clotilde, 
finished the church, and in the sanctuary interred 
the bodies of Sainte-Genevieve and her consort, and, 
later, her two grandchildren, the sons of Clodomir, 
who were murdered by their uncles, Childebert 
and Clotaire, whose power and dominion they, as 
their father's heirs, menaced and diminished. 
Clotilde survived this tragedy twenty years, years 



170 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

devoted to strictest piety, to numerous charities; 
she distributed her domains to churches, to monas- 
teries, in a constant effort to efface by the practice 
of rehgion the memory of this horrible catastrophe. 

The details of this murder merit perhaps a 
passing word as throwing light upon the extraor- 
dinary cruelty of this primitive race of kings. 
Upon the death of Clodomir, the eldest son of 
Clovis and Clotilde, whose heritage was the king- 
dom of Orleans, his widow, Gondiuque, married 
her brother-in-law, Clotaire, and his three male 
infants were confided to their grandmother. Clo- 
tilde showed for the young heirs such tenderness 
that her remaining sons, Childebert and Clotaire, 
were alarmed. The estates of Clodomir had not 
yet been divided amongst his children, and Childe- 
bert proposed to his brother the murder of their 
three nephews. Clotaire was readily persuaded 
and under the pretext to establish them as rulers 
of their father's domain, the brothers sent for 
them. Clotilde, filled with joy at the prospects 
of her grandsons, sent them forth, accompanied 
by a numerous suite. 

Immediately upon their arrival the young 
princes were taken prisoners and the suite dis- 
persed, whereupon the senator of Auvergne, 
Arcadius, was sent to Clotilde with orders to pre- 



SAINTE-GENEVIEVE 171 

sent himself before her with a drawn sword in one 
hand and a pair of scissors in the other. Now 
the Merovingiens wore their hair long as a sign 
of royalty, and Clotilde recognized at once the 
choice which was presented to her. In her im- 
petuous indignation she returned the messenger 
with the brusque word that she would rather 
have the children killed than shaven and deprived 
of their estates. 

Arcadius hastened to report this decision of 
Clotilde, whereupon Clotaire seizing the oldest of 
the princes threw him upon the ground and killed 
him with one stroke of his sword. The youngest 
fell upon his knees before Childebert imploring his 
protection, upon which this extraordinary king, 
says the old narrative, was touched to tears, but 
Clotaire, who was of sterner stuff, cried: How now! 
it was you who decided me to commit this crime, 
and you weaken! Perish yourself or deliver to 
me this child. {'' C'est toi qui in as decide a com- 
mettre ce crime, et tu recules! Peris toi-meme ou 
ahandonne-moi cet enfant/^) Childebert gave way 
and another victim was killed. 

The third prince, Clodoald, was saved by the 
guard, and later he himself cut off his long hair 
and took sacred orders. After his death he was 
sanctified, and his name, somewhat modified, was 



172 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

given in his memory to the village Nogent-sur- 
Seine, thereafter known as Saint-Cloud. 

Out of such triste and inglorious beginnings, 
wars, massacres, murders, parricide, grew then 
the great and powerful abbey of Sainte-Genevieve 
in the suite of the church founded by Clovis and 
endowed by his queen. Upon her death Clotilde 
was interred near the sepulchre of the saint and 
after a thousand years (in 1539) her remains were 
enclosed in a silver shrine. Like Jeanne dArc, 
Sainte-Genevieve, the shepherdess of Nanterre, 
touches strongly French sentiment and patriotism ; 
together with Saint-Denis, the apostle of Paris, 
she figures on most of the Gothic remnants which 
have come down to us, having for Paris her special 
local appeal. Her shrine still attracts thousands 
of the faithful. 

Tradition pictures the youthful Genevieve as a 
peasant girl of the environs of Paris, born in 421, 
and signalled out by Saint-Germain, the bishop 
of Auxerre, as predestined for special service in 
the cause of Christianity. In one of the two 
voyages which he made to Great Britain, Saint- 
Germain passed by Nanterre and consecrated to 
the Seigneur the Virgin Genevieve, who became 
the patron saint of Paris. 

In the strange old church of Saint-Germain-de- 



SAINTE-GENEVIEVE 1T3 

Charonne, buried behind the cemetery Pere La- 
chaise, is a large canvas of the XVI Ith cen- 
tury, representing Saint-Germain standing in his 
pontifical robes consecrating to God the little 
Genevieve, led by her mother. 

Saint-Germain-d'Auxerre was one of the great 
figures of the Christian church in Gaul in the Vth 
century. The bishop of Auxerre, he must not be 
confounded with Saint-Germain, the bishop of 
Paris, who lived in the Vlth century. The first 
IS the patron saint of the churches, Saint-Germain- 
I'Auxerrois and Saint-Germain-de-Charonne, the 
second is the patron of Saint-Germain-des-Pres. 
In the Middle Ages these two bishops with Saint- 
Denis, Saint-Martin, Saint-Remi, Saint-Pierre, 
Saint-Etienne, and Sainte-Genevieve were very 
popular, especially in the Paris region. 
■ Sainte-Genevieve had rendered great service to 
Paris during the troublous times of the barbarian 
invasions. When Attila threatened to lay siege 
to the little city, it was Genevieve, warned of 
God, who addressed the people telling them not 
to abandon their homes and promising them the 
protection of Heaven. When Childeric, the father 
of Clovis, invested the city it was again Genevieve 
who to relieve the famine took command of boats 
sent up the river to Troyes for help. By her 



174 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

prayers she stilled the tempests and brought back 
her ships, laden with provisions. The history of 
her pious life is pictured in the famous modern 
frescoes of the Pantheon, while upon early build- 
ings sculptors delighted to represent her accom- 
panied by a devil who tries vainly to blow out the 
flame of her lighted taper, the symbol of Chris- 
tianity, of which she was a devoted disciple and 
teacher. 

The early church upon the " mountain," behind 
the palace of the Caesars, took the name Sainte- 
Genevieve as early as the Vllth century, on ac- 
count of the miracles performed at the tomb of 
the saint. Ruined in the IXth century by the 
Normans, it was completely rebuilt at about the 
end of the Xllth century, upon the old founda- 
tions, while from time to time under different 
kings it was enriched and embellished. 

The reliquary, in the form of a church, con- 
taining the remains of the saint, was executed in 
1242 by order of Robert de la Ferte-Milon, abbot of 
the monastery, by Bonnard, one of the cleverest of 
French goldsmiths. One hundred and ninety- 
three silver marcs and seven and one-half marcs 
of gold were employed in its confection. Kings 
and queens of France covered it with precious 
stones, and Marie de Medicis gave a rich bouquet 




Plwto A. Oiraudon 



CHIMERAS: ROMAN EPOCH. 

FROM THE OLD ABBEY OF SAINTE-GENEVIEVE. 

]SfOW IN THE LOUVRE. 



MARBLE CAPITAL REPRESENTING 
DANIEL IN THE LIONS' DEN. 
FROM THE ANCIENT BASILICA 
OF SAINT-GENEVIEVE. 
NOW IN THE LOUVRE. 





PEDESTAL AND GROUP OF FOTTR FTGURES IN SCUI.PTIRED WOOD, 
BY GERMAIN PII.ON, WHICH FORMER! Y HELD THE chaSSC 
CONTAINING THE RELICS OF SAI.NTE-0E\E\7EVE IN 
THE CHURCH DEDICATED TO THE SAINT. 
NOW IN THE LOUVRE. 



SAINTE-GENEVIEVE 177 

of diamonds which surmounted the gable of the 
principal face. 

Four statues of women, larger than life size, 
carved from wood by Germain Pilon, placed upon 
marble columns behind the high altar, supported 
the shrine. The arms of the figures have disap- 
peared, but the fragment stands otherwise prac- 
tically intact and forms one of the chief orna- 
ments of that beautiful Salle Jean Goujoii, at the 
Louvre, where so many rare examples of French 
Renaissance sculpture are preserved. The figures 
stand back to back in a circle, and their arms 
were evidently raised to hold the shrine. It is 
amusing to see how far one had come from the 
severity of the epoch of the saint in the opulent 
period in which the accessories to the shrine were 
made. The four women are beautiful, mundane 
creatures, the true companions to the Diana of 
Jean Goujon, a supposed portrait of Diane de 
Poitiers, mistress of Henri II, by whose side they 
now stand. They are exquisitely coiffed and wear 
transparent, filmy draperies, which reveal the de- 
licious contours of their figures. The heads are 
elegantly poised, but seem rather insignificant, 
while the masterly touch of the sculptor comes out 
strong in the vigorous carving of the feet. 

From remotest times the relics of the saint had 



178 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

been considered the safeguard of the city, and the 
shrine was often carried in procession to ward off 
calamities. In 1793 the municipahty of Paris had 
the relics thrown into the fire, the shrine melted in 
the furnace of the mint, an excess of democratic 
vandalism which yielded only twenty-one thousand 
livres to the national treasury. 

When, in 1755, Louis XV, in fulfilment of a 
vow, commenced the building of the great monu- 
ment, now the Pantheon, which was to supersede 
the antique church as a memorial to the patron 
of Paris, Sainte-Genevieve was condemned and 
allowed to fall into ruins. It was demolished in 
1801-7, when the cutting through of the Rue Clovis 
blotted out its foundations and destroyed its 
souvenirs. 

The crypt was the largest and most venerated 
of all Paris. From its ruins was taken the stone 
sarcophagus which had for so many centuries en- 
closed the remains of the Saint. Covered by 
a modern shrine it was installed in the neigh- 
bouring church of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, where 
it is still the object of many a pious pilgrimage. 
All day long and at all seasons of the year can- 
dles, placed by the devout who hope to gain the 
intercession of the saint, burn upon it. 

Something of the beautiful workmanship of the 



SAINTE-GENEVIEVE 179 

Merovingien basilica raised by Clovis to the 
Saints-Apotres, maj^ be divined by the study of a 
remarkable fragment preserved in a room devoted 
to French sculpture of the Moyen Age (Salle 
IX) at the Louvre. This is the capital from one 
of the columns, in marble of a fine grain, appear- 
ing to have been cut at two different times. Ac- 
cording to the label, the face, representing Daniel 
in the Lions' Den is Roman and the back, carved 
in the acanthus leaves of classic antiquity, is of 
the Vlth century. 

Not only is the capital highly decorative in its em- 
bellishment, but the biblical story is told with strik- 
ing conviction. Daniel is seated in the centre be- 
tween the lions, in a peaceful and contemplative 
attitude, his cheek in the palm of one hand and 
the other covering his knee. He has large, calm 
eyes which look out into illimitable space, and the 
expression on his face is truh^ delightful. The 
lions achieve to the utmost their purely decorative 
quality and show their good will by smiling 
broadly, and their entire submission by their tails, 
which are not only between their legs, but owing 
to their great length are curled up again over 
their backs, where they terminate in ornamental 
tassels. In the whole of this conception there is 
something distinctly Chinese. Daniel is Buddhistic, 



180 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

especially in his mystic remoteness and sublimity, 
while the lions are surely akin to the sacred Chow. 

Not far from this fragment of the Merovingien 
basilica is an important relic of the Xlllth cen- 
tury restoration/ This is the large statue of the 
saint herself, taken from the central pier of the 
entrance. The figure stands against the original 
pillar, upon a pedestal, and is covered by a small 
canopy. Following the tradition, the saint holds, 
or rather held, a candle and a book; a demon 
"perches on her left shoulder, an angel leans over 
the right. One tries to extinguish and the other 
defends the flame which should guide the virgin 
in her nocturnal pilgrimage to the tombs of the 
martyrs. In the general wreckage of her environ- 
ment Sainte-Genevieve has lost her nose and her 
candle, and the devil his head, so that without the 
key the significance of the statue is lost. The 
angel is quite intact and leans protectingly over 
the saint's shoulder. The statue dates from the 
beginning of the Xlllth century. 

Some fragmentary capitals from the nave of the 
old church may be discovered in the second court 
of the Beaux-Arts. These are in stone and of 
Xlth century construction, very large and clumsily 
executed. On one of them is the story of Adam 

' Also in Salle TX. 



SAINTE-GENEVIEVE 181 

and Eve in three episodes, making a continuous 
pattern upon the exposed side of the capital. In 
the centre, the serpent entwined about the tree 
offering Eve the apple in his teeth, and Adam 
and Eve in grotesquely unequivocal attitudes; to 
the left, the creation of woman, crude but unmis- 
takable; to the right, the expulsion from Paradise. 
The figures are heavy and primitive while the 
foliage is well cut and well preserved. The motifs 
on the other capitals are less clear as to their 
meaning, it has been thought that they represent 
the signs of the zodiac. All are in a deplorable 
state of decay. 

Upon the wall over the first mentioned frag- 
ment, is a handsome funeral stone of elaborate 
w^orkmanship, representing Jean Disse, a chan- 
cellor of Notre-Dame of Noyon, who died in 1350. 
The stone has been broken, but put together care- 
fully, and though covered with a patine from 
exposure is still clearly legible, both as to decora- 
tion and the inscription which runs around the 
border. 

These things, we assume, were brought here 
at the time of the Revolution, and installed in the 
hastily improvised museum of French art, organ- 
ized by that admirable patriot Alexandre Lenoir, 
to whose intervention and courage we owe the 



182 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

preservation of so many monuments which would 
otherwise have been destroyed. 

A statue of Clovis, made in the Xllth century, 
from the abbey of Sainte-Genevieve, forms one 
of the chief treasures of Saint-Denis. This statue 
had been discarded in the XVIIth century, for a 
more imposing monument in white marble, erected 
in the middle of the choir of the church, by order 
of cardinal de la Rochefoucauld. The Revolu- 
tionists spent their rage upon the modern tomb, 
while the ancient stone effigy, whose place it had 
usurped, escaped their fury and was rescued by 
the indefatigable Lenoir for his Musemn of 
French Monuments installed in the convent of 
the Petits-Augustins. 

The figure with all its accessories and the bed 
upon which it rests are cut from a solid block of 
stone. The workmanship is heavy and coarse, 
and the statue, in contradistinction to the charac- 
teristic style of the epoch, which exaggerated the 
length and elongated the forms as a rule, is short 
and thick. The effigy is distinguished by the long 
hair and beard of the Merovingien princes, and 
tallies in all respects with the old engravings, 
which may be consulted in the works of Dubreul 
and Montfaucon. 

From the vandalism of the Revolutionists these 



SAINTE-GENEVIEVE 188 

and some other monuments were spared, including 
the handsome mausoleum of cardinal de La Roche- 
foucauld, cut in marble by Philippe Buister. 

The monument to Rene Descartes, though re- 
spectfully carried to the shelter of the Petits- 
Augustins, was afterwards dismembered, while 
the ashes of the great philosopher are interred at 
Saint-Germain-des-Pres. 

Thus may one visit the scattered relics of the 
demolished church, while upon the site itself 
stands, still marking the summit of the mount, the 
high and beautiful tower, spared since it did not 
trouble the line of the Rue Clovis. Roman at its 
base and pierced by rounded arches, it passes in 
its ascent, to Gothic, and its two upper stories 
belong to the XlVth and XVth centuries. The 
Roman construction is said to date from the reign 
of Philippe I (1060) or at the latest from the 
first years of the Xllth century. A winding 
stairway of stone mounts through a tourelle at 
the northeastern angle and at each story is a door- 
way opening upon an elegant balcony with fine 
wrought-iron grills. The balustrade and four little 
steeples are in the flamboyant style. 

The convent buildings have been absorbed into 
the construction of the Lycee Henri IV, which 
after the suppression of the abbey took posses- 



184 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

sion. The principal existing remnant is the refec- 
tory, a great, vaulted hall, constructed in the 
XII Ith century, and partially restored in 1886. 
This room serves as chapel for the college. 

The library of Sainte-Genevieve, once celebrated 
in the world of savants, was housed on the top 
floor of the abbey, and constituted one of those 
remote fastnesses of archaeological, scientific, and 
literary research which are the delight of the elect. 
The collections were founded by the cardinal de 
la Rochefoucauld, about 1624, and greatly in- 
creased by the addition of the library of cardinal 
le Tellier, archbishop of Rheims, in 1710. The 
library is rich in manuscripts from the IXth to 
the XVI Ith centuries, many beautifully illu- 
minated, and contains a nearly complete collection 
of Aldine editions as well as a famous collection 
of about 8000 engravings, including nearly 5000 
portraits. 

The Revolution declared the library national 
property, and about the middle of the last century 
the long Florentine building on the north side of 
the Place du Pantheon was erected by the archi- 
tect Labrouste and became the new Bibliotheque 
Sainte-Genevieve. The ancient sanctuary of 
science was denuded of its treasures in 1850 
when the transfer of the collections to the new 
building was made. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE BASILICA OF CHILDEBERT: 
SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 

The quaint old church of Saint-Germain-des- 
Pres, still dominant over an interesting quarter 
of Paris, on the rive gauche, was the nucleus of 
a large and powerful abbey, which once peopled 
this locality and had jurisdiction over an impor- 
tant section known as the Bourg Saint-Germain. 
The existing church, a mere fragment of the 
original construction, was the centre of the abbey, 
as the abbey was the centre of the bourg, or vil- 
lage, the whole having grown out of a foundation 
made in remote times by Childebert, the third 
son and immediate successor of Clovis, the second 
Merovingien king of Paris. 

In ancient times the church and abbey were 
known as Saint-Vincent and Sainte-Croix, the 
former having been built as a shrine for the sacred 
relics brought back by Childebert from a victori- 
ous expedition against the Visigoths (531-543) 
which included the tunic of Saint-Vincent and 
a rich cross of gold, studded with precious stones. 

185 



186 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

from Toledo, said to have been made for Solomon. 

Childebert was encouraged and supported in his 
pious undertaking' by Germain, the good bishop 
of Paris, so good and holy a man that he was 
canonized after death. When, two centuries later, 
his remains were lifted from their first resting- 
place — the Oratory of Saint-Symphorien, attached 
to the right aisle of the church — and solemnly 
transferred to a sepulchre behind the altar of 
Sainte-Croix, the basilica was rededicated to 
Saint-Germain. 

Before the faubourg was inhabited, the abbey 
stood in the middle of a great prairie from which 
it took its name, des Pres — literally Saint-Germain 
of the Fields or Meadows — to distinguish it from 
Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, another church, con- 
temporary or earlier, across the river, founded in 
honour of the bishop of Auxerre. The abbey long 
remained isolated in the middle of these meadows, 
so famous in University annals that they were 
called the Pre aucc Clercs. Various cafes, restau- 
rants, an hotel, and a remnant of a street pre- 
serve the name. 

In founding the monastery, Childebert gave to 
the abbots his fief at Issy and the Oratory Saint- 
Andreol, afterwards Saint-Andre-des-Arts, with 
its territory, the whole comprising a vast domain 



\ 




Photo A. Oiraudon 



CHILDEBEUT. XIII TH CENTURY STATUE. 

FROM THE ABBEY OF SAINT-GERMAIX-DES-PRES. 

NOW IN THE LOtJVRE. 



SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 189 

extending from Sevres to the Petit Pont along 
the left bank of the Seine. King Pepin, who was 
present at the ceremony of the interment of 
Saint-Germain in the basilica, gave the monastery 
on this occasion the royal estate at Palaiseau, with 
its Merovingien palace, not far from Paris. 

The abbots exercised absolute jurisdiction both 
spiritual and temporal over the faubourg Saint- 
Germain, whose constructions occupied little by 
little a large part of the lands given by Childebert 
to the abbey, and in 1255 the inhabitants of the 
villa Sancti-Germcmi were enfranchized and, con- 
sidered as a body entirely distinct from Paris, 
enjoyed special immunities and made their own 
laws. 

In the Xlllth century the village was of small 
extent and chiefly inhabited by vassals of the abbey, 
mostly agriculturalists, and consisted of thatched 
cottages, granges, and rustic buildings; but as the 
taste for country life grew amongst the nobles 
and the rich bourgeoisie of Paris, the bourg be- 
came the country seat of the bishops of Rodez 
and Limoges, the due de Bourbon, the seigneur 
de Garanciere, Madame de Valance, Madame de 
Cassel, the seigneur de la Folic, Regnier, cardinal 
d'Ostie, Navarre, and Nestle. 

When Charles V declared war on England, in 



190 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

1368, he obliged Richard, the abbot of Saint- 
Germain-des-Pres, to fortify his monastery, to 
enclose it in stout walls, defended by towers and 
moats filled with water from the Seine, as a safe- 
guard to the city itself. 

In the XVIth century the long prosperity of 
the bourg commenced, and gradually its rustic 
character gave way to that of an opulent suburb; 
luxurious houses replaced the cattle sheds of the 
shepherds, beautiful gardens, pasture lands, streets 
were put through and old roads mended and made 
thoroughfares. The duchesse de Savoie, a prin- 
cess of the blood, and grand seigneurs such as the 
dukes of Montpensier and Luxembourg, and a 
number of important personages and foreign 
notables such as Salviati and the Gondis, illus- 
trious men like Clement Marot, Ambroise Pare, 
Jean Cousin, and Du Cerceau built sumptuous 
homes. 

In the XVIth century fashion adopted the 
quarter and it was considered in good taste to 
have a house there. The life combined the agree- 
able features of both city and country; tennis was 
the popular relaxation, and on fete days a crowd 
flooded the Pre aux Clercs. 

Meanwhile the territory of the abbey was much 
abridged from the time of Henri II to Louis 



SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 191 

XIV, and little by little the power of the abbey 
was restricted to its actual limits. The faubourg 
Saint-Germain was not definitely united to Paris 
until under Louis XIV. 

As the church had been the nucleus, so the 
monastery remained the centre and pivot of the 
world which grew up around it. From Childebert 
to Dagobert the basilica had served as sepulchre 
for the kings and princes of the Merovingien 
Dynasty, all those who died in Paris or in the 
diocese were buried beneath the paving of the 
splendid monument to its founder and its patron 
saints. 

Up to 1503 the abbots were elected by the 
monks, but afterwards appointments were made 
by the crown. From its riches the chief was 
usually a cardinal, sometimes a king, and Hugues 
Capet, and Casimir V, of Poland, were amongst 
the abbots of Saint-Germain-des-Pres. The comte 
du Vexin, son of Louis XIV and Madame de 
Montespan, died as abbot in his eleventh year 
(1683) and lies buried in the church with Fran- 
9ois, prince de Conde, who died in the abbatial 
palace in 1614, and his children. The hearts of 
cardinal Charles de Bourbon, Fran9oise d'Orleans- 
Longueville, princesse de Conde, and of Henri de 
Verneuil, bastard son of Henri IV and former 



192 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

abbot of the monastery, were interred in the 
church. 

Next oldest church in Paris, after Notre-Dame, 
its origin goes back to the earhest souvenirs of 
France, while its founding was the result of a 
curious circumstance. 

As narrated by dom Bouillard in his Histoire 
de VAhhoye royale Saint-Geriiiain-des-Prcz, the 
facts culled from Gregoire de Tours and For- 
tunat, Childebert and his brother Clotaire joined 
forces in Spain against Teudis, the king of the 
Visigoths, the mortal enemies of the Francs. 
After capturing Aragon they made the siege of 
Saragossa, and sweeping everything before them 
would soon have captured the city, but for the 
extraordinary piety and faith of their simple 
opponents. Reduced to extremity and without 
hope of human aid, says the narrative, the in- 
habitants of Saragossa clothed themselves in sack- 
cloth and ashes, and singing psalms to the praise 
of the Lord, carried in procession about the 
walls of the city the tunic of Saint- Vincent, who 
had })een their citizen, hoping thus to invoke miracu- 
lous intervention to accomplish the humanly 
impossible. 

This singular means of defence struck Childe- 
bert and Clotaire, drawn up in battle array with- 



SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 193 

out the walls and at some distance from the city, 
with astonishment and terror. In the midst of 
their distress a peasant was seen to emerge from 
the city by one of the gates, and the kings at 
once had him arrested and brought before them. 
When he appeared they asked him the meaning 
of this demonstration upon the walls, to which 
the peasant replied with simplicity, that the peo- 
ple carried in procession the tunic of their patron 
saint Vincent, in order to appease the wrath of 
God and to obtain the raising of the siege. 

We are constantly astonished at the incon- 
sistencies of character in the descendants of 
Merovee. We have seen Childebert soften before 
the grief and terror of the children of Clodomir; 
w^e now again behold the brothers, who had not 
scrupled to murder their nephews for their own 
aggrandizement, moved to tears before the spec- 
tacle of a people's naive faith and piety. Childe- 
bert and C lota ire were so touched, says the nar- 
rative, that they raised the siege and promised 
to leave the Visigoths in peace — upon two condi- 
tions: first, that Arianism be abolished in Spain; 
and second, that the tunic of Saint-Vincent be 
given them as a trophy of war. 

Necessity forced the Visigoths to accede to the 
demands, and Childebert brought the sacred vest- 



194 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

ment to Paris with great solemnities. With the 
best of intentions it is doubtful whether Childe- 
bert's will would have held unaided in his project 
to raise a temple over the trophies of his victories, 
had not the bishop Germain kept him to his word. 

Saint-Germain was of Autun, a primitive city 
of middle France. There, as abbot of Saint- 
Symphorien, he had become famous as a miracle 
worker and a man of piety, his reputation extend- 
ing far and wide; so that, happening to be in 
Paris when the episcopal chair was vacant upon 
the death of the bishop Eusebe, he was appointed 
by Childebert to fill the place. This dignity the 
saint bore with humility, continuing the austerity 
of his life until old age. " He suffered with 
sweetness," says the narrative, " the cold of age — 
and of winter, during which he never warmed 
himself." 

His influence over the king, though great, he 
used only for the advantage of his people and 
his church, never for himself. His miracles were 
many, and once when Childebert was mortally 
ill in his chateau de Chelles, at Melun, Germain 
spent the night in prayer at his bedside, and the 
king was saved. It was in gratitude for this that 
Childebert built Saint-Germain-des-Pres. 

The church was erected in the old Roman 



SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 195 

suburb of Locutitius, where, according to tradi- 
tion, still stood the vestiges of a temple to Isis, in 
order that the worship of God might displace 
that of the pagan divinity. Begun about 556 it 
was finished in 558. The plan of the church was 
cruciform, following the lines of Solomon's 
cross. A rich mosaic formed the paving, and 
sheets of gilded copper covered the roof, itself 
supported by great marble columns. The sides 
were pierced by many windows, and paintings on 
a background of gold embellished the walls, while 
a ceiling laid in gold leaf completed an ensemble 
so rich in this material that the basilica was some- 
times called Saint-Germain-le-dore, or le palais 
dore de Saint-Germain, Childebert invested it 
with the sacred trophies — the tunic, the gold cross, 
thirty chalices, fifteen patens, twenty caskets in- 
tended to hold the evangels. All this we know 
from the author of the life of Doctrovee, the first 
abbot of the monastery. 

At the end of each arm of the cross was an 
altar, the main one, to the east, dedicated to the 
Sainte-Croix. Besides these four altars Saint- 
Germain had erected, to the right of the main 
entrance, an oratory to Saint-Symphorien, in 
memory of his former charge at Autun, and this 
he chose as his sepulchre. Opposite was the ora- 



196 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

tory of Saint-Pierre. These opened from the 
inside of the church and constituted, in a sense, 
chapels of the nave. 

Childebert, who seems at the time to have re- 
sided at the Palais des Thermes, walked daily 
through his gardens as far as the basilica, to 
inspect the work. This we know from the writ- 
ings of Fortunat. The good bishop's cure pro- 
longed his life only a few years, for Childebert 
fell ill again before the church was finished, and 
died upon the day of dedication, 23 December, 
558. The ceremony of dedication was immediately 
followed by the funeral of the king; he was in- 
terred with pomp in the church, on the south side 
between the second and third pillars of the apse, 
in a simple stone tomb, slightly raised above the 
level of the paving. 

Clovis and Clotilde, the first king and queen of 
Paris, together with their two murdered grand- 
sons, were buried in the crypt of Sainte-Genevieve. 
From Childebert, their son, to Dagobert, their 
great-great-grandson, the builder of Saint-Denis, 
the kings and princes who died in Paris, or in the 
diocese, were buried at Saint-Germain-des-Pres. 
When they died elsewhere they were buried in 
other famous churches, as for instance, Clotaire, 
dying in his palace at Compiegne, was buried in 




; r 




SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES. 



SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 199 

the basilica of Saint-^Iedard, in his old capital at 
Soissons. Also Sigebert his son, assassinated by 
the furious Fredegonde, was interred at Saint- 
Medard. 

Thus Saint-Germain-des-Pres became famous as 
the burial place for the Merovingien kings, as well 
as the shrine of Saint-Germain himself, and the 
sepulchre of other distinguished and notable per- 
sonages. The list of dignitaries interred in the 
church is enormous, from Childebert, 558, and 
Ultrogothe, his queen, with their daughters, Crot- 
berge and Clodesinde; the king Caribert, 562; 
Chilperic, 584, Fredegonde, his queen, 597, with 
Merovee and Clovis, his sons; Clotaire II, 628, 
and Bertrude, his wife; Childeric II with Bilihilde, 
his wife, 673, and Dagobert, their infant son, 
674. These last three sepulchres were discovered 
in 1646, under the paving of the choir, near the 
north tower. The tomb of Clotaire II was a 
simple stone, without ornament or inscription. 

Chilperic and Fredegonde were buried near the 
wall which supports the north bell tower of the 
choir. The queen's tomb was covered by a slab 
in mosaic of a curious workmanship, the outlines 
of the figure and ornaments made by slender 
threads of gilded copper. Fredegonde is repre- 
sented in the middle wearing the crown of fleur- 



200 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

de-lijs, and the flowering sceptre in her hand. She 
wears royal robes, belted. Her face and hands 
are blank — the flat plain stone was perhaps once 
painted. The whole image is surrounded by a 
fine ornamental border. 

The stone, rescued at the time of the Revolu- 
tion, is preserved in the cathedral at Saint-Denis, 
where it forms one of the most interesting of the 
royal collection. The Benedictines and after them 
antiquarians of the old school considered the 
monument contemporary with the queen whose 
ashes it covered. Should this be true, the stone, 
owing to the durable qualities of the mosaic, would 
be the only one from Saint-Germain which sur- 
vived the Norman invasions, when the riches of 
the abbey made it a first object of pillage and 
destruction. In this case it has been conjectured 
that the bare spaces in place of the face and 
hands, already referred to, were covered with sil- 
ver or even gold, engraved, and that the metal 
was stolen by the invaders. The baron de 
Guilhermy, however, who made a minute examina- 
tion of the stone, was convinced that it had been 
restored in the Xlth century, at the epoch of the 
first general reconstruction of the basilica under 
the Abbe Morard. 

We must remember that the Normans sacked, 



SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 201 

burned, and almost entirely destroyed the monas- 
tery, descending upon it over and over again, in 
845, 847, and 861. The body of the saint was 
the chief concern of the priests, and we have seen 
how it was carried to a place of safety within the 
walls of the city. Other sepulchres were dese- 
crated and thus the tombs of Chilperic, the hus- 
band of the ferocious Fredegonde, and of Childe- 
bert, the founder, were recut in the Xlth century. 

The bones of Childebert and of Ultrogothe, his 
wife, in separate sarcophagi, were gathered up 
in the year 1656 and reinterred in the centre of 
the choir of the basilica, in a new tomb of marble 
upon whose sides the Benedictines had engraved 
beautiful antique inscriptions. The new monu- 
ment was crowned by the ancient stone whicli had 
covered the primitive sepulchre of Childebert, and 
which seems also to have been a restoration from 
the Xlth century. This stone is at Saint-Denis 
and is distinguished by the severity and grandeur 
of its style. Sculptured in half-relief, the king 
carries in his right hand the apse of the church 
which he founded, and in his left a flowering scep- 
tre. The drapery of the figure is cut by a master, 
and the whole has distinction and character. 

The tomb of Chilperic, sculptured in relief, was 
similar to that of Childebert and made at the 



^202 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

same time. It was broken dm'ing the Revolution 
and is replaced by an inferior copy made from 
engravings of the older monument. 

The stones engraved with the portraits of Clo- 
taire II and Bertrude, his queen, and of Childeric 
II were taken from Saint- Germain-des-Pres, and 
are preserved at Saint-Denis. They were cut in 
1656, after the ancient originals which Bernard de 
Montfaucon tells us were allowed to perish with- 
out a thought for their archaeological importance. 

The existing church is a mere fragment of the 
immense constructions that constituted the rich 
and powerful abbey which, royally endowed, grew 
up around the basilica chosen by Saint-Germain 
for his sepulchre. A well, known as the Puits 
Saint-Germain, was behind the high altar, near 
the tomb of the saint; its water was reputed to 
have miraculous curative properties. Abbon, in 
his poem on the siege of Paris by the Normans, 
mentions this well and the virtues of its waters. 
Most early churches had similar miraculous wells. 
The opening was long since closed, but in the 
early days so many miracles were performed there 
that the church became a great sanctuary. The 
illustrious abbots who governed it, remarkable for 
their piety and wisdom, contributed also to its 
splendour. Several were of royal blood, others 



SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 203 

were chancellors and grands au7iioniers of France, 
others rose to the dignity of cardinals. 

The monks which Saint-Germain established in 
the monastery came from Saint-Symphorien of 
Autun, they followed the rules of Saint-Antoine 
and Saint-Basile; soon they embraced those of 
Saint-Benoit, the great legislator of the monks of 
the Occident. In the XVIIth century the abbey 
adopted the reform of Saint-Maur, and it is in 
this return to the severity of discipline that its 
monks by their prodigious labours became illus- 
trious all over Europe. 

The buildings erected by Childebert and his suc- 
cessors were devastated by the Normans, as we 
have said. Each time these terrible men made 
incursions into Paris the abbey of Saint-Germain- 
des-Pres was the first exposed to their fury. Pil- 
laged, burned, demolished, it was merely a mass 
of ruins when King Eudes finally expelled the 
barbarians. 

These ruins had been patched up from time to 
time and made to serve as best they could until 
the time of Robert the Pious, when the abbe 
Morard, assisted by this prince, had the ruins torn 
down and rebuilt the church upon the old founda- 
tions. This we know from the inscription upon 
the sepulchre of the abbe Morard, recorded by 



204 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

pere Dubreul (d. 1614). Roughly translated 
from the Latin it read: "Here lies Morard of 
happy memory, the abbot who rebuilt on the foun- 
dations of this church, after having destroyed the 
old one, which was three times burned by the Nor- 
mans. He also built a tower and several other 
things." The tomb and inscription perished when 
the paving of the church was renewed, but the 
Louvre (Salle XXXVIII) preserves the stone 
lid of a sarcophagus found in the course of excava- 
tions made under the superintendence of Alex- 
andre Lenoir in 1799, under the place where the 
high altar used to stand, and which is attributed to 
the tomb of the a})I)e ^lorard. It is a very hand- 
some piece of stone cutting, saddleback in shape, 
ornamented with fish-scales and palms and a vine 
stock growing from a vase on the sides. Lenoir 
describes fully the sarcophagus and its contents 
exhumed at the time. 

From the Boulevard Saint-Germain one sees 
distinctly the base of the old south tower of the 
choir, cut off square at the point of departure of 
the fleche, the companion of the north tower, built 
by the abbe Morard, less visible from the Rue 
de FAbbaye. Old engravings show the church as 
once having had three high-pointed steeples, one 
to the west and two rising from the intersection of 



SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 205 

the arms of the cross. These were embellishments 
added to the original plan under the reconstruc- 
tion. 

It has always been considered that the quad- 
rangular tower, at the main entrance, which gives 
the church the appearance of a fortress, belonged 
to the first construction. The lower part is older 
than the upper, which, together with the oldest 
j^arts of the nave, are thought to have been built 
in the Xlth century. Exceedingly bare and un- 
assuming, it retains, despite the drastic repara- 
tions and modifications it has undergone, its unmis- 
takably primitive character, as does in fact the 
whole exterior of this solemn old church with the 
many excrescences which have adhered to it. 

Walk under the dingy porch and raise the eyes 
to the shadowy space above the door. As the eye 
accustoms itself to the obscurity, quaint, rude 
sculpture reveals itself. First a long stone slab 
carved with little figures seated at a table, the 
folds of the cloth elaborately exaggerated — it is 
the Last Supper, for see, there is John lying in 
a somewhat absurd attitude across the knees of 
Jesus. The door has been clumsily changed from 
Roman to Gothic so that of the twelve apostles 
one counts but ten, the eleventh disappears into 
the right-hand wall, and the twelfth is completely 



206 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

covered by the alteration of the arch. The heads 
of Christ and most of the disciples have been 
broken off, but under the regular folds of the table- 
cloth the feet appear in neat pairs, except where 
a break has been repaired. 

Above this panel is a still more strange human 
figure, in half-length, full face, the arms extended, 
the hands broken off above the wrists — but accord- 
ing to old descriptions once raised in an attitude 
of prayer. These two reliefs, which go back 
surely to earliest Christian times in Gaul, may be 
cited as proof of the antiquity of the tower. 

The pillage of this door, which destroyed the 
royal portraits of the porch, at the time of the 
Revolution, has left us some extremely interesting 
capitals to the restored columns. These present 
handsome carving of decorative birds feeding 
upon pomegranates, alternated with foliated de- 
signs. The Cluny Museum (Salle des Thermes) 
preserves a collection of similar capitals from the 
interior of the church, evidently of the same epoch 
and probably by the same sculptor. They are 
listed as Xllth century. 

The eight statues which stood, four to each side 
of the door, and which were in place until the 
Revolution, also went back to the first construc- 
tion. Fortunately they had been engraved in sev- 



SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 207 

eral works/ so that we know how they looked, 
and that they presented the forms and costumes 
of the VI th century, and greatly resembled the 
statues of Saint Anne's porch at Notre-Dame and 
other originals existing at Chartres. 

The figures represented, it is thought, Childe- 
bert (the founder), his wife, his parents, his 
brothers, and a bishop. The bishop stood first to 
the right on coming out of the church, then Clovis 
and Clotilde and their first son, Clodomir. On 
the other side Thierry, Childebert, Ultrogothe 
(his queen) and Clotaire. Pere Mabillon thought 
the bishop was Saint-Germain, a natural conclu- 
sion, but a more thoughtful student, dom Thierry, 
considered the figure to have been that of Saint- 
Remi, who converted the Francs. He stood next 
to Clovis, whom he baptised, and he treads under 
foot the dragon, emblem of unbelief. It would 
seem to have been characteristic of the modesty of 
the bishop Germain to have ceded his place to 
Remi. 

Montfaucon, writing in 1724, describes the 
scrolls which the kings carried and upon which 
one could in his day still decipher some of the 
letters of their names. Clovis and Childebert only 



' Notably Les Monuments de la Monarchie Franqaise. Bernard 
de Montfaucon. 



208 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

carried the sceptre, as kings of Paris, and Childe- 
bert holds also a book — the sign of the founder. 
Clotilde was usually represented with a web foot, 
and was called la reine pcdauque, or the queen 
with a goose's foot. The figures all wore the halo, 
following the example of the Roman emperors, 
the custom which marked the Merovingien race. 

The principal entrance to the church is now in 
the Rue Bonaparte, or rather in the Place Saint- 
Germain-des-Pres, an opening made by the com- 
paratively recent cutting through of the modern 
Rue de Rennes. As we see it upon the old charts 
the monastery was enclosed by the Rues Saint- 
Benoit, Sainte-Marguerite (now swallowed up in 
the Boulevard Saint-Germain), de I'Echaude, 
and Colombier (now the Rue Jacob). The main 
entrance was from the Rue Saint-Benoit to the 
west, and the church stood well within the enclo- 
sure surrounded by the cloisters, the refectory, 
the famous Chapel of the Virgin, the abbatial 
palace, and the gaol. 

There were two cloisters, large and small, both 
to the north of the church. One of the sides of 
the larger cloister, that which touches the church, 
has been almost entirely preserved and is now dis- 
tributed in apartments. Its round arches, doric 
pilasters, and frieze with triglyphs dates from the 



SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 209 

XVI Ith century. A portion of it may be well 
seen from the com-t of No. 13 Rue de I'Abbaye. 
The Rue de I'Abbaye cuts the site of the great 
cloister through the middle. 

The refectory, constructed in the time of the 
abbe Simon, by the illustrious architect of Saint- 
Louis, Pierre de Montereau, was considered a 
masterpiece. This great room was fifty feet 
long by thirty-two feet wide. Legendary subjects 
embellished with the arms of France and of Cas- 
tille done in gorgeous glass filled the windows. 
Several panels are preserved in the Chapelle de 
Sainte-Genevieve, in the apse of the church, and 
others at Saint-Denis. The lectern was a marvel 
of sculpture. A statue of Childebert, in painted 
stone, stood at the entrance and is now taken 
care of in the Louvre (Salle IX) ; it dates from 
the middle Xlllth century, and is contemporary 
with the refectory itself, which was built from 
1239 to 1244. 

Gathered together in the small park which 
opens from a corner of the church are fragments 
of the great chapel to the Virgin, the chef-d'oeuvre 
of Pierre de Montereau, a chapel resembling in 
style and disposition his existing monument, the 
Sainte-Chapelle. A particularly handsome frag- 
ment is also displayed in the garden of the Cluny 



210 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Museum. From this debris, constituting gar- 
goyles, balustrades, columns, and ornaments, found 
in a garden at the corner of the Rue de lAbbaye 
and Rue Furstemberg, as well as from the many 
contemporary descriptions one can build up some 
idea of the beauty of this celebrated chapel. It 
was begun under the abbe Hugues of Issy (d. 
1247) and completed under Thomas de Mauleon, 
who resigned in 1255, and like the Sainte-Chapelle 
belongs entirely to the reign of Saint-Louis. 
Smaller than the chapel of the Palais, it was one 
hundred feet long, twenty-seven feet wide, and 
forty-seven feet in height. The door of the chapel, 
sculptured with great finesse, and the statue of 
the Virgin from its pier are at Saint-Denis. 

When Pierre de Montereau died, in 1266, the 
abbe Gerard de Moret raised a monument to him 
in the Chapelle de la Vierge. 

The opening of the Rue de lAbbaye cost this 
old quarter the refectory and the chapel. Impor- 
tant fragments of the latter remained, however, 
for many years and were inhabited by artists who 
found here a sympathetic environment. I have 
before me a letter, written by one of them, Truman 
H. Bartlett, dated January 21, 1920, which con- 
tains a description of this quarter as he knew it 
in the early seventies. He says: " The old num- 



SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 211 

ber 10 Rue de I'Abbaye was my studio, in '72-3-4. 
It was originally the Chapel of the Virgin of the 
church Saint-Germain-des-Pres. The first floor 
was slightly below the street and its paving con- 
sisted of handsome stones inscribed with the names 
of the eminent monks buried there. Below this 
was another floor reached by a narrow steep stair 
where there was a fine well of water, and from 
this lower story was the door of a stone passage- 
way leading to a larger one that went down from 
the church to the Rue Bonaparte and continued 
to the Seine. When the city put a large sewer 
through the Rue de Rennes I happened to pass 
by and see the whole, thing. The large stone pas- 
sage was used in early times by the monks to 
reach the Seine during the Norman invasions." 

A modern apartment house blots out every ves- 
tige of the building of which Mr. Bartlett speaks, 
but the old abbey cellars are still in existence. 

The Palais Abbatial still stands to the rear of 
the church, entered from the Rue de I'Abbaye, a 
handsome brick and stone edifice of the late 
XVI th century. A monument to the munificence 
of cardinal de Bourbon, who built it about 1586, 
it conserves in its handsome roof and graceful 
design, despite the general dishonour of its finer 
attributes, a distinguished and unmistakable air. 



212 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Concealed behind an ugly brick wall is the hand- 
some old doorway of the palace of the abbots, but 
within all is changed. 

Mere names now remain to mark once famous 
spots. The Rue Cardinal curved around the sta- 
bles of the palace and along the gardens behind 
and to the south of the church. 

The abbey was suppressed on February 13, 
1792, and the church was closed. The refectory 
which served as a prison in 1793 was destroyed 
by an explosion in the following year (part of 
the building having been made into a factory for 
the manufacture of saltpetre). The monks then 
forgotten in their homes were obliged to seek 
another shelter, and fled all with the exception 
of dom Poirier, who, like Cassandra on the ruins 
of Ilion, would not abandon the smoking ruins. 
Thanks to this devoted Benedictine the library, 
which had caught fire, was partly saved. The 
manuscripts were all preserved and in 1795 were 
brought to the Bibliotheque Nationale. The 
library contained nearly fifty thousand printed 
volumes and over seven thousand manuscripts. 

In 1792 the gaol of the abbey, situated at the 
southeastern angle of the enclosure, was a scene 
of horror. Priests and nobles in great number 
were imprisoned there. 



SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 213 

Under the Restoration many monuments and 
other valuables, given temporary shelter in 
Lenoir's hastily improvised nmseum at the Beaux- 
Arts, were given back to the church. These in- 
cluded a Virgin in marble, called Notre-Dame-la- 
Blanche (which the Queen Jeanne d'Evreux had 
given in 1340 to the abbey of Saint-Denis) , a statue 
of Sainte-Marguerite by frere Jacques Bourlet 
(1705), and a figure of Saint-Francois Xavier, by 
Coustou jeune. 

The mausoleum of Casimir, king of Poland, 
who became abbot of Saint-Germain in 1669, 
after having renounced his croM'n, was reestab- 
lished about 1824, in the left transept. The 
kneeling figure, offering his crown and sceptre, 
is by Marsy, the relief underneath is by Jean 
Thibaut. 

In the opposite transept is a similar tomb, rees- 
tablished at the same time, of Oliver and Louis de 
Castellan, killed in the service of the king in 1644 
and 1669. The figures and medallions are by 
Girardon. 

In two chapels opposite each other in the apse 
are the tombs of William and James Douglas, 
while the tomb of the Douglas family was in the 
chapel of Saint-Christophe. William Douglas, a 
prince of Scotland and illustrious warrior, died 



214 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

in 1611, in the service of Henri IV. James, his 
grandson, was killed in 1645, aged eighteen years, 
in a combat near Douai. 

At the time of the Revolution the remains of 
Nicolas Boileau, Rene Descartes, Jean Mabillon, 
and Bernard de Montfaucon were piously gath- 
ered up and placed in safety at the Musee des 
Petits-Augustins, and after the suppression of 
this museum were deposited at Saint-Germain- 
des-Pres. Boileau reposed formerly in the Sainte- 
Chapelle, Descartes at Sainte-Genevieve, while the 
two savants — monks of this abbey — returned to 
their original resting places. The ashes of 
Mabillon, de Montfaucon, and Descartes with 
their inscriptions are in the second chapel of the 
apse, dedicated to the Sacred Heart. Boileau's 
inscription has been erected in the Chapel of 
Saint Peter and Saint Paul. 

The Chapelle Sainte-Genevieve is enriched by 
the two Xlllth century glass windows, recon- 
structed from the debris of the windows of the 
refectory. These represent Anne and Joachim, 
the Annunciation, the Marriage of the Virgin, 
and perhaps some of the Acts of Mercy. A panel 
or two has been remade. 

The old high altar, remade in 1704, was com- 
pletely destroyed. Six columns of cipolin marble 



SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 215 

which supported the baldaquin, brought from the 
ruins of a Roman city in Africa, in the reign of 
Louis XIV, have been erected in the picture gal- 
leries of the Louvre. This altar with its mag- 
nificent decorations was still in place in 1792. 

A partial restoration of the church was under- 
taken in 1820, when ruin menaced the northern 
part, and at this time the belfrys of the transept 
were taken down. The present restoration was 
undertaken in 1845, when were added the poly- 
chrome decoration of the interior as we now see 
it and the Flandrin mural paintings. 

The whole effect strikes one as curious and in- 
teresting rather than good, and the ensemble lacks 
harmony, though in parts it is both gorgeous and 
effective. 

The wall panels throughout the nave and 
choir represent the greatest work of Hippolj^te 
Flandrin and occupied the artist from 1842 to 
1849. The earliest of the panels are those on the 
left side, as one faces the altar. The series rep- 
resents: Christ's entrance into Jerusalem; four 
symbolic figures. Faith, Hope, Charity, and Pa- 
tience; Saint-Germain accompanied by Doctrovee, 
the first abbot of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, receiv- 
ing from Childebert and Ultrogothe the model of 
this basilica. 



216 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

In 1843, before these panels were finished the 
city voted the funds for the decoration of the 
opposite side and these panels are: Jesus carrying 
his cross to Calvary; Justice, Prudence, Temper- 
ance, and Force; and Saint-Vincent, martyr, ac- 
companied by Pope Alexander III, abbe Morard, 
Saint-Benoit, and King Robert. This subject 
refers to the consecration of the second church in 
1163. 

The decorations of the choir show the twelve 
apostles on a gold background, united by a poly- 
chrome decoration. At the back, upon the round- 
point is the Lamb of God, holding the world and 
the standard of triumph. About him are the four 
symbols of the evangelists, the eagle, the angel, 
the lion, and the winged bull. The modern win- 
dows of the church were also made from designs 
by Flandrin. 



CHAPTER X 
SAINT-GERMAIN-L'AUXERROTS 

Faiuly laiinclied now upon the birth of the 
Gothic, Paris presents an embarrassment of 
riches in churches which show the transition as 
well as the full flower of this deliglitful period. 
A visit to Saint-Germain-FAuxerrois, the most 
accessible, as it is the most perfect example of 
its type, might well be preceded by a tour of 
some of the smaller, fragmentary churches, of 
earlier actual construction, such as Saint- 
Germain-de-Charonne, near the cemetery Pere 
Lachaise, Saint-Pierre-de-Montmartre, Saint- 
Julien-le-Pauvre, and most beautiful of all the 
old priory church of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, 
now part of the Conservatoire des Arts et 
Metiers. 

If one leaves these for a following chapter, it 
is not only because Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois 
antedates them in point of foundation, but also 
with the hope that as acquaintance with these 
churches grows the loiterer will have more interest 
in discovering such scattered relics of a richer 

217 



218 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

time, and more cleverness in detecting their gen- 
uine features. 

In Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois as it stands we 
see, despite much lamentable modification and 
restoration, a very beautiful example of Gothic 
architecture in its flower. The belfry belongs to 
the Xllth century, the main entrance, choir, and 
apse to the first half of the Xlllth, the greater 
part of the fa9ade, the nave, the transepts, and 
the chapels to the XVth and XVIth centuries. 

Restorations have been many and disastrous, 
the last dating from the reign of Napoleon III, 
when the edifice was made part of an architectural 
scheme which included the erection of the town 
hall or Mairie of the Arrondissement du Louvre, 
built in imitation of the Gothic church to which 
it forms a pendant, and the tower, by Ballu, 
standing between them. 

The value of this arrangement, so confusing to 
visitors, is more than doubtful. While making 
rather a handsome terminus to the Louvre the 
imitations rob Saint-Germain of its unique im- 
portance, diminish its intrinsic lustre. 

As Saint-Germain-des-Pres relates to the good 
bishop of Paris, so Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois is 
dedicated to the still earlier bishop of Auxerre, 
him who consecrated Genevieve, the patron saint 




saint-germain-l'atjxerbois. 
under the porch. 




Photo A. Giraudon 



THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS. 

BY JEAN GOUJON. 

PART OF THE DECORATION' OF THE ANCIENT 

ROOD-LOFT OF SAINT-GERJIAIN-L'AUXERROIS. 

NOW IN THE L0U\'RE 



SAINT-GERMAIN -L'AUXERROIS 221 

of Paris. Though the exact period of its founda- 
tion is unknown, Lebeuf thinks it was first con- 
structed to commemorate some miracle or act of 
Saint-Germain d'Auxerre during his sojourn in 
the cit}^, or that it may have been erected by 
Saint-Germain of Paris, as a tribute to his greatly 
venerated predecessor. 

After the tradition of the diocese King Childe- 
bert and Ultrogothe, his queen, enriched the new 
church, whose importance became second only to 
that of the cathedral. In 866 it was sacked by 
the Normans and converted by them into a for- 
tress, after which it was called Saint-Germain-le- 
Rond, from its circular form. From the time of 
Charlemagne at least, a public school of great 
celebrity attracted to the cloister numerous 
students, its location recalled in the name of the 
Place de VEcole, running from behind the right 
side of the church to the quai, which formerly bore 
the same name, the name by which they were 
known in the Xlllth century. The life of King 
Robert (by Helgaud) mentions the rebuilding of 
the church by this prince, but that reconstruction 
has been wiped out by a later one done with 
thoroughness and deliberation. 

A cloister once enclosed a part of the church 
and the house of the dean stood opposite the 



222 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

porch, between the church and the Louvre; old 
cuts show chapels, one each side of the porch, and 
a steeple surmounting the tower. It was from 
this tower that the tocsin was rung after mid- 
night on the morning of August 24, 1572, by the 
order of Catherine de Medicis, as the signal for 
the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, and the 
modern tower marks the spot where, two days 
before, an attempt had been made upon the life 
of Admiral Coligny, the first victim of the mas- 
sacre, as he was returning from the Louvre to 
his home, in the Rue de Betizy, along the Rue des 
Fosses Saint-Germain. The house from which 
the shot was fired was that of the Canon Pierre 
de Pille de Villemur, a former preceptor of the 
Duke of Guise. It stood in the Rue des Fosses 
Saint-Germain, contiguous to the church, into 
which there was an opening from it by a back 
door. The assassin made his escape through the 
cloister, mounted a horse which stood ready sad- 
dled for him, and fled from the city by the Porte 
Saint-Antoine. 

In the Place de I'Ecole lived in the XlVth 
century Etienne Marcel, provost of the merchants 
of Paris, who as chief of the Jacquerie led the 
revolt of the lower classes against the nobles 
during the captivity of the king, Jean le Bon; 



SAINT-GERMAIN-L'AUXERROIS 223 

and here lived also, as a boy of fourteen, Calvin, 
the reformer, with his uncle Richard, a locksmith, 
in a little room overlooking the church, awakened 
each morning by the chants to attend the College 
de la Marche. 

The church, of course, antedates the Louvre, 
which at its most remote construction dates from 
the time of Philippe Auguste, but when built 
both the Louvre and the Tuileries became parish- 
ioners of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, making it 
the royal church of Paris, and many princes of 
France were baptised here. 

It is undoubtedly the portico which gives to the 
church its distinguished character and contributes 
its most piquant note of elegance. This porch 
is the work of Jean Gaussel, and dates from 
1435, in the reign of Charles VII. Its pic- 
turesqueness is created in part by the disposition 
of the seven pointed arches which give free access 
to it, five across the front and one at each end. 
The vaulted ceiling, low at the sides and high in 
the middle, is marked by prismatic ribs converg- 
ing from the angles and tied together at their 
points of junction by a boss, or stud, or 
escutcheon, elaborately sculptured. The central 
one, bearing the arms of France, has been dis- 
placed, but on the two sides, under the lower 



224 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

vaultings, one makes out readily the circular de- 
signs, in full relief, painted and gilded, of the 
Last Supper and the Adoration of Christ by the 
Shepherds. Where the ribs finish against the 
walls, there are consoles representing a fool with 
his bauble, grotesques, and little animals in dif- 
ferent attitudes, carved with relish. 

Of the ancient figures of the porch there re- 
main but that of Sainte-Marie-l'Egyptienne, 
against the second pillar from the left end, and 
a much mutilated Saint Francis of Assisi at the 
other extremity. The carving of the former is 
vigorous, the figure lifelike and animated, obviously 
much earlier than the others. The sculptor had 
evidently filled himself with the naive history of this 
saint, for in the quaint figure, clothed in her long, 
wavy tresses, and holding piled one upon the other 
the three loaves of bread with which she is to be 
nourished during a lifetime of penitence in the 
desert, we seem to feel the whole touching story 
as told in La Legende Dorce. 

Translated from the Latin of the most ancient 
manuscripts, the story runs briefly that Zozime, 
an abbot, having crossed the Jordan, hoping to 
encounter in the desert some saintly hermit, saw 
one day before him a bizarre creature, entirely 
nude, with the body burned black with the sun. 



SAINT-GERMAIN-L'AUXERROIS 225 

Seeing him the creature fled across the sands and 
Zozime ran after it " with all the force of his 
legs." Then it spoke surprisingly, saying: 
"Abbe Zozime, why do you pursue me? Pardon 
me that I cannot turn towards you; it is be- 
cause I am a woman, and quite nude. Throw me 
your cloak, in order that, being covered, I may 
look at you without shame." The abbot, stupe- 
fied to hear himself called by name, divined at 
once that he had to do with a person of super- 
natural 2^owers. He threw his mantle and, pros- 
trating himself before her, asked her to bless him. 
But she said : " It is for you rather to bless me, 
father, you who are clothed with the dignity of 
priesthood." 

The abbot now more than ever convinced that 
the woman was indeed especially endowed pre- 
vailed upon her to bless him and afterwards to 
tell him her history. " I am called Marie," she 
begins, " and I was born in Egypt." At the age 
of twelve, recounts Marie, she went to Alexandria 
and commenced the career of public courtesan, 
which she continued for seventeen years, but 
being converted in Jerusalem, where she had gone 
from curiosity to see the holy cross, she had prom- 
ised to renounce the world and live forevermore 
in chastity. While she was praying before the 



226 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

cross a stranger put three pieces of money into 
her hand, and with these she purchased the three 
loaves of bread. 

Obeying a voice she crossed the Jordan and 
took up her abode in the desert, where for forty- 
six years she lived without ever seeing a human 
face, subsisting upon the three loaves of bread, 
which, becoming hard as stone, still sufficed for 
her nourishment. 

Zozime comes again twice to the desert to ad- 
minister the holy sacrament to Marie on Easter 
day. The second time he finds her lying dead 
near the place of their first encounter, and where, 
aided by a friendly lion, he digs a grave and 
piously inters her remains. 

The story, as told by the ancient narrator, is 
full of convincing detail, such as is demanded by 
children. Everything is accounted for. Having 
no money to pay her passage from Alexandria to 
Jerusalem when she wishes to make that pious 
pilgrimage with the other inhabitants of the city, 
she makes a bargain with the boatman, which, 
though shameful, she does not hesitate to de- 
scribe to Zozime, feeling, perhaps, that the end 
justified the means. While, as to her garments, 
" long ago," says she, " they fell in pieces." 

It seems fairly certain that originally the 



SAINT-GERMAIN-L'AUXERROIS 227 

spirited statue of the portico of Saint-Germain- 
I'Auxerrois stood frankly nude according to the 
narrative. The hit of drapery, now hung across 
the arms, which may pass for the cloak of the 
abbe Zozime, was probably added by a prudish 
hand at some later date than the statue itself. 

Though scraped of its rich gilding and colour- 
ing, to accord with the modern Mairie, the portico 
still retains something of the warmth of its former 
richness, and exhales a certain delicate glow. In 
the statue of the Egyptian are strong traces of 
pigment, while the little motifs of the ceiling are 
full of colour, and the doors are rich in gold leaf. 

Three doors give access to the church; those at 
the sides are of XVth century make. The central 
one belongs to the first half of the Xlllth cen- 
tury, and is therefore earlier than the portico 
itself. During the reign of Louis XIV it lost its 
central upright figure, a statue of Christ, and the 
" Last Judgment " of the tympanum. The pier 
has been replaced and a statue of the Virgin, of 
a later epoch has been supplied. The sculpture of 
the tympanum has been replaced by a painting on 
the stone, now nearly effaced. 

The door preserves, however, the six statues of 
its embrasure and the three historic choirs of its 
archivolt. The study of Notre-Dame makes easy 



228 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

the reading of the story of this portal, and one 
recognizes in the figures to the left Saint- Vincent 
(the second patron of the church), a bearded 
king, presumably Childebert, and a queen, proba- 
bly Ultrogothe — the benefactors of the original 
foundation; to the right, Saint-Germain d'Au- 
xerre, in bishop's robes, Sainte-Genevieve with 
her candle and the traditional demon on her right 
shoulder trying to extinguish her light, and beside 
her an angel, smiling securely and holding an- 
other lighted taper ready to relight the saint's 
candle, should the demon succeed. 

Each figure stands upon a grotesque support 
contrived to form a console. Saint-Vincent 
makes of the prefect who condemned him his 
footstool, Childebert treads upon a griffon, Ultro- 
gothe upon a devil; while upon the opposite side 
we see a stooping man, and two demons of 
hideous form. 

A Gothic inscription of the XVth or XVIth 
century once named the king and queen, but 
their identity seems plain enough in any case 
from the connection of Childebert and his consort 
with the original edifice and from the resemblance 
which the figure of the king bears to the statue 
of Childebert in the Louvre. 

In the archivolt are assembled thirty figures in 



SAINT-GERMAIN-L'AUXERROIS 229 

an excellent state of preservation relating to the 
Last Judgment, which, as in the central door of 
Notre-Dame, made the theme of the destroyed 
tympanum. In the first row of figures, to the 
left, sits Abraham, between two trees, holding 
upon his bosom, as it were, the redeemed, while 
upon the opposite side of the door is represented 
a vivid scene of Hell, with three lost souls, two 
demons, etc. Six angels, their eyes turned to- 
wards the tympanum, complete the first row of 
figures, and a cherub, with wings, makes the 
centre. The wise and foolish virgins fill the sec- 
ond choir, and, lest there be doubt as to which is 
which, the sculptor has veiled the hair of the 
former with scarfs and given them a modest air, 
their lamps upright and alight, while the foolish 
virgins are coiffed in a worldly manner and carry 
their lamps upside down. At the p(jint of the 
arch two hands come through a cloud and hold 
a ribbon which floats to the right and left and 
still bears traces of lettering nearly effaced. 

The twelve apostles, sitting each under a little 
dais and carrying the instruments of their mar- 
tyrdom, form the third row over this door. The 
heads are remarkable in nobility and expression. 
John bj- exception holds the celestial palm and 
the vase from which the dragon issues. 



230 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Above the porch the fa9ade is pierced by a 
rose window, at each side of which rises a small 
tower of elegant design, while surmounting all, 
upon the point of the gable end of the nave, is 
a modern angel, by Marochetti. The exterior is 
rich in stone carving of the XVth century — balus- 
trades, gables, consoles, gargoyles, cornices em- 
bellished with leaves and flowers and little gro- 
tesques of men and beasts. 

The buttresses end in small foliated steeples, 
from which are suspended at right angles the 
extraordinary gargoyles of this church — fantastic 
birds, griffons, monkeys, wolves, dogs, bears, etc. 
At the southwest angle a showman strikes with a 
ring upon a tablet and makes a monkey go 
through his paces; further down a savage, armed 
with a club, comes grinning out of the mouth of 
a hippopotamus. The consoles under the gar- 
goyles are full of interest and reflect the lively 
imagination of the time. An opera glass would 
not be amiss for the study and thus aided 
one can distinguish a world of symbolism — a 
beggar with his dog, a fool, a sow suckling her 
family, the earth, represented as a globe, eaten 
by rats which escape across the crevasses while a 
cat watches the passage. 

Unfortunately much restoration has destroyed 



SAINT-GERMAIN-L'AUXERROIS 231 

a great deal and only a few of the numerous 
gargoyles remain. 

The belfry rises from the right-hand side, at 
the southeast angle of the cross, where the choir 
joins the transept. That it belongs to the Xllth 
century, before the development of Gothic archi- 
tecture, is plain from the full arch of the bays, 
the cornices with modillons, the little square pil- 
lars, the imposts of the Roman style. The balus- 
trade is modern, for the XVIIIth century 
decapitated the tower, suppressed its high snire 
of stone and its four little steeples. 

Inside, despite many changes, the effect of this 
old church is impressive and beautiful. Of its 
rich original ornamentation the nave retains only 
a few escutcheons, handsomely carved and lock- 
ing the intersections of the ribs of the vaulting. 
Seated in the nave with the head turned to the 
roof one can make out clearly the figures of 
Saint Vincent, one of the patrons of the church, 
Saint John, Saint Landry, and Saint Christopher. 
The most elaborate is that of Saint-Germain in 
episcopal robes, painted and gilded against a rose 
in stone, in the Chapel to the Virgin, on the right- 
hand side of the nave. 

This chapel occupies the entire space opening 
from the south aisle and constitutes a complete 



232 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

little church in itself, with stalls, organ, pulpit, 
a cloister in carved wood, and an altar rich in 
bas-reliefs. Uj^on the reredos is a richly carved 
tree of Jesse, full of royal figures, and in the 
centre a XlVth century Virgin, of painted stone, 
brought from a church in Champagne. 

Such windows of value as Saint-Germain pre- 
serves of its former plenitude date from the 
XVth and XVIth centuries. These are the two 
roses to the north and south and six windows of 
the transept. Smaller and later than those of 
Notre-Dame, they are interesting for the beautiful 
shapes of the spaces into which the stonework 
of their construction divides them. The colour- 
ing is much less brilliant than that of earlier glass, 
but is soft and harmonious; the effect here is, 
unfortunately, greatly diminished by the glare in 
this church caused by the suppression of the win- 
dows of the clerestory of the nave (destroyed 
about 1728). When the whole church was 
lighted by windows similar to those of the 
transept the effect must have been very beautiful. 

In the north rose the subject begins to de- 
velop from the centre, where is placed the 
Eternal Father in the costume of a pope. 
Around him are several circles of angels, cherubs. 



SAINT-GERMAIN-I/AUXERROIS 233 

martyrs, and confessors. Amongst the martyrs 
are Saint- Vincent, Sainte-Agnes, Sainte-Mar- 
guerite, Sainte-Catherine, and Sainte-Marthe; 
amongst the confessors, Saint-Germain d'Auxerre 
and Saint-Louis. 

The south rose, especially admirable for its 
effect of light and colour, develops the subject 
of the Holy Ghost, which in the form of a dove 
descends from the top compartment, from a sky 
filled with rays of glory. The Virgin and the 
apostles receive the first effusion of grace and 
light, which in diminishing brilliancy and increas- 
ing depth of shadow extends to a numerous choir 
of disciples and saints. 

The side windows of the north and south 
transept belong to the XVIth century and show 
even more than the roses the growth of the art 
from the strict conventionality of early Gothic to 
the vivacity and picturesque costume of the 
Renaissance. All these windows were taken out 
during the war and are only now, little by little, 
being returned to their places. 

The choir was enclosed until 1744 by a splendid 
rood-loft designed by Pierre Lescot and sculp- 
tured by Jean Goujon, the celebrated architect 
and sculptor of the Renaissance portions of the 



234 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Louvre. This was taken out by the church war- 
dens and curates under the pretext of opening the 
sanctuary to the view of the faithful. 

The Entombment and Four Evangehsts, bas- 
reliefs in stone, are preserved amongst the treas- 
ures of the Renaissance sculpture in the Louvre. 

This lamentable bit of ecclesiastic vandalism 
was perpetrated upon the suppression of the 
chapter. The new administration was not satis- 
fied with the mere opening of the choir, they 
wished to improve the view thus presented by 
the creation of a modern choir, purified so far 
as was possible of the barbarous Gothic. 

The actual plan of the disfigurement which one 
now sees was made by an architect called Bacarit. 
Under his direction the solid old columns of the 
choir were fluted, their leafy capitals transformed 
into garlands, while above the pointed arches was 
traced a stupid pattern in the stone. Only the 
vaultings, which could not be touched without 
weakening the construction, were spared, and in 
these may still be read the real date of the choir 
and apse, written large in the general form. 

Saint-Germain was once rich in XVIth and 
XVI Ith century tombs. The Louvre sent it 
many illustrious dead — officers of the royal house 
and artists whom kings had housed in the palace. 



SAINT-GERMAIN-L'AUXERROIS 235 

Besides chevaliers of orders, chancellors, gentle- 
men, secretaries of state, reposed the remains of 
the poet Malherbe, the savant Andre Dacier, the 
painters Coypel, Houasse, Stella, and Santerre; 
and the sculptors Sarazin, Desjardins, and 
Coyzevox. 

Vaults hollowed out under the nave for the 
burial of ordinary parishioners still exist. There 
the bones are ranged with symmetry like a charnel 
house. 

One cannot do better than to yield to the im- 
portunities of the sacristan, who is ever ready to 
show with care and intelligence the treasures of 
this church. It is he who will unlock for visitors 
the beautiful chapel to the Virgin, who will con- 
duct one to a little room built over the porch, 
to the right hand of the entrance, once dedicated 
to the archives and treasures of the chapter. 
There were two such rooms, to the left and right, 
and this one is still intact, with its old flooring, 
its carved wood wardrobes with iron hinges, and 
its old furniture. Amongst other things the room 
contains a triptych of the XVIth century carved 
and painted with the history of the Original Sin 
and the legend of the Virgin. 

The pulpit and stalls have survived the Revo- 
lution; and the state seat of royalty, built in 



236 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

1684, from designs by Lebrun, by Fran9ois 
Mercier, still occupies an important place in the 
nave. The grill of the enclosure of the choir in 
polished iron with bronze ornaments is classed 
amongst the finest wrought iron work of the 
XVIlIth century. 

The sacristan delights also in conducting 
visitors up the perilous ladders into the belfry, 
from which was rung the signal for the Massacre 
of Saint-Bartholomew, and to induce the unwary 
to ring the great bell at mid-day. This man is 
one of those rare creatures who knows his subject 
and loves it. I had a long talk with him one 
day soon after the declaration of the armistice 
when he had freshly returned from the trenches. 
He had " made all the front " he told me and 
returned unscratched, and to see him going peace- 
fully about his church duties one could scarcely 
figure him as an instrument in the recent calam- 
ity. He enticed me readily to the tower; we 
mounted stone stairways succeeded by delicately 
balanced ladders which bent beneath our weight 
like straws, and finally landed upon a platform 
of rough boards, which formed little more than 
a ledge around the stone sides, while the middle 
yawned open above unfathomed depths. 

The little man stepped about with the agility 



SAINT-GERMAIN-L'AUXERROIS 237 

of a cat, urging upon me one folly after another 
until the thought struck me with force that he 
might readily have a touch of insanity as a result 
of his years of horror at the front, and I was 
seized with something of the panic which Henri 
IV experienced when he mounted the tower of 
Saint-Germain-des-Pres, accompanied hy a single 
monk, to reconnoitre during the siege of Paris in 
1589. I too was afraid the temptation to fling 
me down that abyss might prove too strong, but 
it was a mean thought, for the little sacristan was 
all kindness and jollity. We descended from the 
vertiginous scafl^olding to the solid planks of the 
belfry in time to ring the angelus, and I shall 
never forget the little fellow clinging to the rope 
and letting the bell carry him high into space for 
my amusement, smiling gleefully the while like 
a merry gnome. He made me take hold when he 
had the bell well started and I scorched my hands 
with the ropes. Feeling that I had done some- 
thing exceptional I asked him if many ladies had 
made the trip to the extreme top, and, smiling 
with extraordinary glee, he said promptly: ''Ah 
Old, Madame, siirtout les Amcricaines." 

During the upheavals of 1831 this church was 
robbed and pillaged by the mob. For six years 
after this the building was closed for worship 



238 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

and its sacristy and presbytery used as a mairie. 
Its demolition was decided upon in order to make 
a street from the Louvre to the Hotel de Ville, 
but the eloquence of Chateaubriand prevailed and 
the authorities were persuaded to spare " un des 
plus anciens rnonuments de Paris, et d'une cpoque 
dont il 7ie reste presque plus rien." 



CHAPTER XI 
TRANSITION CHURCHES 

At this point Paris presents a choice bouquet 
of quaint and ancient churches of the transition 
and Gothic periods. Full of points of resem- 
blance to those greater examples, already dealt 
with at length, they corroborate and amplif\^ the 
subject, grow in interest with each visit, invite 
familiarity and comparison. Completely at vari- 
ance, for the most part, with their restored and 
regenerated environments, they present in each 
instance the vivid keynote of that Paris of which 
they once formed the chief ornaments, of that 
lie de France of which they were the perfect 
flowers. Bereft of all their contemporaries, they 
stand about Paris in the thick of modern traffic, 
or in odd by-ways, always a bit in the way, con- 
spicuous like old folk in the costume of by-gone 
days, eloquent in a speech that has ceased to be 
current, full of a quaint dignity, warm and simple 
of approach. 

They are scattered wide about the city — Saint- 
Julien-le-Pauvre and Saint-Severin, on the rive 

239 



240 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

gauche, not far from the cathedral; Saint-Martin- 
des-Champs, Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs, and Saint- 
Merri, on the rive droite in the old Rue Saint- 
Martin, one of the earliest routes leaving 
Paris by its northern gate; the Sainte-Chapelle, 
in the ile de la Cite itself, forming part of the 
palace of Louis IX; Saint-Medard, far away in 
the southeastern section behind Val-de-Grace; 
Saint-Pierre-de-Montmartre, on the hill of the 
martyrs for which it is named, the last vestige of 
a once powerful monastery; and Saint-Germain- 
de-Charonne, near the fortifications behind Pere 
Lachaise. 

These old churches lend themselves to leisurely 
investigation, to frequent, casual droppings in. 
To pass one by for whatever reason of haste or 
preoccupation seems an unpardonable omission, 
an unintelligent discourtesy. They are rich in an 
atmosphere of sincerity, of faith, of nobility, of 
art. Inspiring in their ensemble they are full of 
endless detail, are eloquent in response to sym- 
pathetic interest. Very often too the sacristan, 
busy and austere as he seems in pursuit of dust 
and disorder, bustling about the chapels with so 
forbidding an air, is a most human creature de- 
manding only a little intelligent interest to draw 



TRANSITION CHURCHES 241 

out a fund of more or less reliable information 
and unlooked-for privileges. 

The charm of these sanctuaries is subtle rather 
than obvious, and it is only as one gets to know 
them well that their full value develops. The 
Sainte-Chapelle is, of course, so perfect a gem of 
its period and so admirably restored that it reveals 
itself at once as a masterpiece. Saint-Severin, 
too, though much despoiled by modernization and 
incautious restoration, still holds sufficiently to its 
original character to announce itself as of no un- 
common merit. Its windows alone would arrest 
the attention of the most casual of loiterers. But 
the humbler, fragmentary churches must be 
known well like shy people before their real worth 
becomes apparent. 

To touch the very heart of the matter let us 
return to that ancient ruelle, leading from the 
Rue Galande, at whose corner we have enjoyed so 
admirable a view of Notre-Dame; and passing 
through the old wooden gateway into the shabby 
court, protected by a fragment of the wall of 
Philippe Auguste, enter the tiny church of Saint- 
Julien-le-Pauvre. 

What we see is a strange abbreviation of a 
church contemporary with the cathedral and 



242 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

probably finished first. All that is authentic 
therein dates from the second half of the Xllth 
century, at the moment when Roman architecture 
ceded to Gothic. It was built by the monks of 
Sainte-Marie-de-Longpont and next to it was a 
priory of fifty monks. The site v/as that of a 
basilica of the IlIrd century. 

Saint-Julien martyr was the first patron, and 
afterwards the church came also under the pro- 
tection of a second Saint-Julien, the bishop of 
Le Mans, called le Pauvre because of his great 
charity which led him to give to the poor all that 
he possessed. To these was added a third Julien, 
he who in expiation for an accidental crime had 
established a hospital on the banks of a river 
where the crossing was perilous, and where, ac- 
companied by his devoted wife, he not only cared 
for travellers who suffered from exposure and 
cold, but served as ferryman, carrying in his bark 
all who wished to cross from one bank to the 
other. 

Once upon a freezing night in winter when 
Julien, worn out with his labours, was asleep in 
his bed, he was awakened by the plaintive voice of 
a stranger asking to be ferried across the river. 
Rising instantly and perceiving that the stranger 
was a leper, half dead with the cold, he brought 



TRANSITION CHURCHES 243 

him into his house and lit a great fire to warm 
him, carrying him finally to his own bed and 
covering him with care. Upon this last proof of 
humility and devotion the leper transformed him- 
self into an angel shining with light, and an- 
nounced to Julien that he and his wife were par- 
doned of God. 

Of these patrons it is the bishop of Le Mans 
who survives the tradition, though in the ancient 
legends the stories are confounded one with another. 

The church was brilliant in the Middle Ages. 
Under its roof were held the general assemblies of 
the University of Paris, while the bell, still hang- 
ing in the little tower to the right, as the sacristan 
loves to tell, roused from slumber the whole of 
the Latin Quarter. 

In 1651 the ancient portail with its columns, 
capitals, and statues was destroyed and the first 
two bays of the nave were suppressed, while the 
tower was thrown down to its base. The frag- 
ment of the nave was closed at this time by the 
present Greek facade, which has stood for up- 
wards of three centuries. 

The Revolution menaced the remains and the 
church only escaped demolition by being seized 
upon to serve as chapel for the Hdtel-Dieu, which 
stood close beside it. 



244 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

The nave is so changed as to have lost most 
of its archfEological interest, but the remainder 
of the church preserves its ancient character, its 
primitive arrangement. One enters through the 
unrelated Greek portal into an interior which at 
first seems crude and barren, with a simplicity- 
touching upon poverty in keeping with the name 
of the church. To realize at once how the front 
end of the nave has been cut off, one has but to 
turn and see imbedded in the entrance wall the 
remains of two large capitals carved with the 
grape-vine, which must have belonged to the 
demolished pillars. The capitals of the small 
engaged columns against the walls of the aisles 
escaped destruction and are handsomely carved 
with water-lily and fern designs. The two middle 
columns of the nave are wholly modern, but the 
other four are Tuscan, remade in the XVIIth 
century. 

The sanctuary is simple and severe, showing 
the Gothic at its birth detaching itself from the 
Roman. The ornamentation is that of the first 
period of Gothic and presents the flora of the 
Xllth century in the carving of the capitals of 
the columns in which we find the arum, the water- 
lily, the fern, and the grape-vine carved with 
force and energy; the water-lily form predomi- 



TRANSITION CHURCHES 245 

nates and, magnificently treated, its motifs recall 
those of Notre-Dame, verifying the assumption 
that the same sculptors worked upon the two 
churches. 

The two large capitals of the pillars of the 
choir are the chef-d'ceuvres of this church. The 
column to the right shows the acanthus leaf form- 
ing square capitals in whose four angles are fig- 
ures of harpies with women's heads, feathered 
bodies, spread wings, and paws armed with claws. 
The capital of the left-hand column is also dec- 
orated with the acanthus leaf, without figures, but 
of a bigness of composition truly remarkable. 

The sacristy contains an archaic little statue of 
Charlemagne, in terra cotta, attributed to the 
Xlth century and supposed to have belonged to 
the earlier church erected on this site. It was 
found in the soil under the paving during com- 
paratively recent excavations. 

The whole of this quarter between the near-by 
quay and the Boulevard Saint-Germain is honey- 
combed with small old-world streets, densely 
populated and inviting casual rambles. The Rue 
Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre leads directly back to that 
larger, more important church, Saint-Severin, but 
it is more amusing and more refreshing, if one will 
see the two churches in one morning, to return by 



246 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

a round-about way along the quays, turning in 
again by what has been described as a mere crack 
in the houses along the Seine, the Rue du Chat- 
qui-Peche, famous for its antiquity and named 
for an ancient sign, long since disappeared. By 
this narrow thoroughfare one comes upon the pic- 
turesque old Rue Zacharie, which terminates in the 
Rue Saint-Severin, and from this junction one gets 
perhaps the most delightful first view of the 
church itself with its fine tower, its gargoyles, and 
other picturesque features. 

Saint-Severin 

The origin of Saint-Severin is obscure. The 
supposition is that it existed first as an oratory 
built in honour of a pious " solitaire," who lived in 
Paris in the time of Childebert I and who took 
Clodoald (Saint-Cloud), at the time that he es- 
caped murder at the hands of his uncles, as a 
disciple. It has been thought that this oratory 
was consecrated by Saint-Cloud himself in mem- 
ory of his master. Other authors think that the 
church was called for the abbot of Agaune. 

Be that as it may, the oratory on the site of 
the hermitage, having been sacked by the Nor- 
mans, was rebuilt in the Xlth century as the 



TRANSITION CHURCHES 247 

" Ecclesia Sancti Severi Solitarii," and became 
the chief church of an immense parish, comprising 
nearly all of the southern part of Paris. 

In its actual state it dates from the Xlllth 
century. The cloche?', a square tower, rises from 
the^ northwest angle; the elegance of its long, 
pointed bays, with their pretty little columns at 
the embrasures, and the fineness of the workman- 
ship indicate the middle of the XII Ith century. 
The tower terminates in a sharp steeple decorated 
with dormer windows, capped with a lanthorn, 
whose point can be seen all along the quays. 

The main entrance, now usually closed, is under 
the tower, and opens from the Rue Saint-Severin. 
It has a good porch with columns, under which 
are still vestiges of an inscription, in small Gothic 
letters of the X Tilth century, while to the right 
and left, let into the walls, are two reliefs of 
lions, small and extremely ornamental. 

In the tympanum is a wretched relief replacing 
the contemporary destroyed panel, representing 
Saint-Martin sharing his coat with the beggar. 
The church possessed a piece of this glorious vest- 
ment and had also a chapel dedicated to the 
charitable bishop of Tours, venerated as one of the 
chief patrons of the parish. Saint-Martin is 



248 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

always represented mounted on horseback and 
travellers took him for their protector; when set- 
ting out upon voyages or upon their return it 
was customary to come to Saint-Severin and at- 
tach a horse-shoe to his image, and the door, under 
the image, used to be completely covered with 
them. When the voyage was likely to be long or 
hazardous the rider frequently branded his horse's 
hoof with the key of the church door. 

The west door is interesting as conserving the 
ancient portal from the destroyed church of Saint- 
Pierre-aux-Boeufs, brought here in 1837. It 
dates chiefly from the early Xlllth century, ex- 
cept for its modern tympanum. The oak panels 
of the door itself, ornamented with medallions of 
Saint Peter and Saint Paul, is XVIIth century. 

Within, despite many changes, the church is ex- 
ceedingly curious and interesting still. The 
visitor is at once struck by the series of handsome 
XVth and XVI th century windows, which, to the 
number of fifteen, make the unbroken series from 
the fourth bay of the nave in the clerestory. 
These were all dismounted during the war and at 
the moment are in process of being put back. 
Restoration suppressed some of the backgrounds 
and borders to gain light in tlic church, but the 
windows retain their beautiful shape and are em- 



TRANSITION CHURCHES 249 

bellished with coats of arms and figures of their 
donors. 

The church is curious in that it has no transept. 
Its shape is that of a long parallelogram, termi- 
nating in a circular apse. Like Saint-Germain- 
I'Auxerrois, Saint-Severin once had a rood-loft, 
erected in 1414 by a bequest of Antoine de Com- 
paigne and his wife Oudette. It was destroyed 
to open the sanctuary to the view of the faithful 
in the latter half of the XVI Ith century, at which 
time the church received also the modern decora- 
tion which disfigures the spaces over the pointed 
arches of the nave. 

The double ambulatory adds greatly to the pic- 
turesque aspect of this old church, and is inter- 
esting for its groined vaulting, whose complica- 
tions appear to proceed, in a manner, from a 
curious twisted pillar in the centre of the apse 
behind the high altar. The second aisle on the 
right is the earliest; it dates from the XlVth 
century, and contains many beautiful carved 
escutcheons, and Gothic consoles. 

In the chapel dedicated to Saint-Jean-l'Evan- 
geliste are some early decorations by Hippolyte 
Flandrin, done in 1839. These consist of four 
compositions full of charm and religious senti- 
ment. The subjects: " The Calhng of the Apos- 



250 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

ties," " The Last Supper," " The Martyrdom of 
Saint John," and " Saint John Writing the 
Apocalypse." 

Many other souvenirs attach to this old church. 
At Pentecost a flight of pigeons used to be sent 
down during mass through holes in the vaulting 
to typify the descent of the Holy Spirit. Be- 
tween the lions of the north porch the magis- 
trates of the town administered justice. In the 
churchyard of Saint-Severin the first operation 
for gall-stone was performed in public, in Janu- 
ary, 1474. The patient was a soldier, condemned 
to be hung for theft, and upon the success of the 
operation he was pardoned and rewarded. 

Saint-Pierre-de-Montmartre 

Leaving the ile de la Cite by the Grand Pont, 
from earliest times ran a road irregularly towards 
the north, leading to the Butte Montmartre and 
the Chapel of the Martyrs, called the Chemin de 
Montmartre. The Halles Centrales now partly 
cover its ancient bed, but from the Place du 
Chatelet, the Rue des Halles to the centre of that 
vast market, then across its width to the rear of 
Saint-Eustache, one finds again the old thorough- 
fare under its ancient name, and mounting that 
street to its end, before Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, 



TRANSITION CHURCHES 251 

a deviation to the right will lead up the steep Rue 
des Martyrs, from whose termination a choice of 
means of ascent presents itself for the final stage 
of a pilgrimage to that famous hill which over- 
looks the whole of Paris. 

The great, dazzling basilica of the Sacre Coeur, 
which now caps the mountain with its ostentatious 
piety, throws the picturesque village of that primi- 
tive Paris, so fast disappearing, completely out 
of scale. It is only by a direct effort of will that 
one can disregard the sense of its impending near- 
ness, of its oppressive insistence as the thing to 
be seen on the historic hill. From the horrid 
funicular which hauls the unimaginative up a 
final stretch of perpendicularity which the pious 
ancients took upon their knees, to the indis- 
criminate hawkers of secular and religious 
souvenirs and emblems, with which the environ- 
ment of the whole irrelevant, theatrical mass is 
literally infested, the utmost has been done to 
deprive the sacred site of its legitimate interest. 

That legitimate interest one takes to be pri- 
marily the fact of the martyrdom, upon this hill, 
some sundry centuries ago, of the first apostle of 
the Gauls, that same Saint-Denis who, sent from 
Rome in the beginning of the Christian Era, con- 
verted the Parisii, and was put to death by order 



252 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

of the Roman governor. The epoch of Saint- 
Denis is uncertain, but the tradition which indi- 
cates the summit of Montmartre as the place 
of his death and which places his tomb where 
is now the city of Saint-Denis has never been con- 
tested. 

" After being decapitated," says Hilduin, the 
abbot of Saint-Denis, writing only four or five 
centuries after the event and with the conviction 
of an eyewitness, " the saint rose up on his feet, 
took his head in his hands, and walked about a 
league while angels sang about him, ' Gloria tibi 
Domine ' and others responded three times, ' Alle- 
luia.' Finally he arrived thus at the spot where 
now stands his church." 

Thus the name, Mo7is Martis — 3Io7is Mar- 
ty rum, is in memory of the martyrdom of the 
first bishop of Paris and of his two companions, 
Rustique and Eleuthere, whose heads, according 
to the tradition, were cut oft' upon this hill. From 
time immemorial three streets of the summit of 
Montmartre recorded the names of the three 
martyrs. The Rue Saint-Eleuthere holding with- 
in its curve the remains of the old abbey, which 
once dominated the hill, still retains the name 
of the deacon who accompanied the apostle, and 
a narrow old street on the other side of the 
place before the ancient church of Saint-Pierre 



TRANSITION CHURCHES 253 

still bears the inscription, "Rue Rustique"; but 
a negligence all too regrettable has allowed to 
lapse the name of the principal figure of the 
legend and the centuries-old Rue Saint-Denis is 
lost in the modern Rue Mont-Cenis, which follows 
the way that, carrying his head in his hand, the 
saint took down the northern slope of the hill, 
towards tlie stopping place upon the plain beyond 
which was to become his sepulchre. Rue de la 
Procession, without the present walls of the city, 
covers the route of that extraordinary march, 
anciently marked by stations of the cross. 

Two edifices of which we have but vague in- 
formation preceded the present church Saint- 
Pierre-de-Montmartre. The existing chapel, re- 
stored from a state of general decay, but still 
preserving an authentic air of antiquity, dates 
from 1163, when Louis le Gros and his queen, Alix 
of Savoie, having established at Montmartre the 
nuns of the order of Saint-Benoit, commenced its 
construction. In 1147 the church was conse- 
crated by Pope Eugenius III, who was in Paris 
to celebrate Easter at Saint-Denis, in the pres- 
ence of Saint-Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, and 
Pierre le Venerable, abbot of Cluny. 

The church served as chapel to the royal Bene- 
dictine convent — royal because its abbesses were 
appointed by the king. Amongst the famous 



254 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

women who became abbesses of the convent were 
Marie de BeauviUiers, the nun carried off by 
Henri IV, described in the Amour Philosophe, 
and Marguerite-Louise d'Orleans, grand-duchess 
of Tuscany, took up her abode here after her 
separation from her husband, Cosimo III, in 1675. 

Queen AHx was buried in the church, but her 
tomb was destroyed in the Revolution. There 
exists, however, a good Xllth century tomb of 
an abbess with her effigy engraved upon the 
stone. 

Louis XIV rebuilt the abbey, and from this 
later construction is preserved, in the garden, a 
Calvary with a Holy Sepulchre containing a figure 
of Christ at the tomb. 

Lamartine, in his Histoire des Girondins, de- 
scribes the tragic fate of this convent during the 
Reign of Terror, when it was suppressed and its 
inmates guillotined. The abbess at the time was 
Madame de Montmorency, the nuns included 
young girls and elderly women with white hair, 
" whose sole crimes were the will of their parents 
and the fidelity of their vows." Grouped about 
their abbess in the charrette as it rattled along 
through the thronged streets of Paris towards the 
scaffold, they sang continuously the sacred chants 
of their faith, chanting " to the last voice the 



TRANSITION CHURCHES 255 

hymn of their martyrdom. Their voices troubled 
the hearts of the mob, and the extinction of such 
combined youth, beauty, and rehgion forced the 
people to turn away their eyes." 

The interior of the little church is of a primitive 
severity. One fancies one's self far from Paris, 
in some tiny province, as rounding the Rue Saint- 
Eleuthere into the ancient Rue Saint-Denis, and 
crossing the desolate little place before the 
church one enters through its modest portal. Ruin 
and restoration have left many fragments of the 
original stone carving, and a few intensely inter- 
esting archaeological souvenirs. 

Against the wall of the facade, inside, are two 
pillars formed of three columns each. The prin- 
cipal column of each group is of black and white 
marble from Aquitania, with capitals in white 
marble carved with the acanthus leaf. For a long 
time these two columns were thought to be re- 
mains from a pagan temple built on the hill in 
honour of Mars or Mercury, but modern archae- 
ologists ' attribute them to Christian origin and 
think that they date from a Merovingien edifice 
raised on the summit of Montmartre. A primi- 
tive cross carved on the volute of one of the leaves 
seems to justify this theory. 

> Notably Albert Lenoir. 



256 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

The church is composed of a nave with four 
bays, a choir of one bay, and a circular apse. 
The nave is wide and has two aisles which termi- 
nate at the birth of the apse. The pillars of the 
nave are massive and formed of three stout 
columns. 

The little apse retams its primitive vaulting 
and its Xllth centmy pointed arches. The win- 
dows, except the middle one, have been closed up 
and reopened and much restored. 

In the choir, separating the rectangular portion 
from the round-point, are two granite columns 
with white marble capitals, of great antiquity 
and considered to have come from the earliest 
Roman temple. 

The little church of Saint-Jean and Saint- 
Francois, in the Marais, behind the Musee des 
Archives, contains a rarely beautiful statue of 
Saint-Denis by Jacques Sarazin, made by order 
of Anne d'Autriche for the abbey of Mont- 
martre. 

From this sumptuous statue alone, one may 
build up an idea of the importance of the abbey 
for which it was designed, and it is interesting to 
see how far from the original austerity of the 
history of the martyr one had already strayed in 
the XVI Ith century. Sarazin presents the first 



TRANSITION CHURCHES 257 

bishop of Paris in his pontifical robes, kneeling 
in graceful suppliance which suggests the cour- 
tier of the regency of Anne of Austria. The 
modelling is soft and plastic, the figure has grace, 
elegance, and an appealing beauty, and is clothed 
in voluminous draperies which fall in handsome 
folds and show superb handling. 

The little church which gathered in the relic 
after the Revolution, was founded in 1623, for 
a chajjel to the convent of the Capuchins, and is 
therefore contemporary with the statue. The 
chancel is beautifully done in wood panelling of 
the epoch and many of the details are worthy of 
attention. 

As a pendant to the statue of Saint-Denis has 
been placed, the two within the chancel rail, an- 
other kneeling statue, of Saint Francis of Assisi, 
made by Germain Pilon. 

Saint-Germain-de-Charonne 

This old church, the worthy companion of 
Saint-Pierre-de-Montmartre, stands in a remote 
quarter of Paris, behind the cemetery Pere La- 
chaise. Situated upon the side of a hill, one 
approaches it by a broad flight of thirty-one 
steps. The edifice is well seen from the church- 
yard on the north side, entered by a gateway at 



258 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

the left, at the top of the steps, and from this 
rambhng old garden, full of lilac bushes and 
ancient graves, the building presents a curious 
aspect. 

The side wall of the church seems buried in 
the side of the hill, while its immense roof of 
gray tiles piles up, in picturesque perspective, to 
the cock, surmounting the steeple on the opposite 
side. The outside of the church is very simple, 
the belfry, massive and low, but imposing with 
its buttresses and its two Roman-arched windows 
and its pointed roof, terminating in a cross, car- 
rying the cock. It is a good old French belfry. 
We breathe the France of old days here. 

The name Charonne is very old. L'abbe 
Lebeuf, who divined often that which modern 
science has since proven, said that the name was 
probably Gallic. The parish is said to date back 
to Saint-Germain, the illustrious bishop of Au- 
xerre, who in one of his voyages to England 
stopped at Charonne, and in the presence of the 
inhabitants performed a miracle, the memory of 
which was perpetuated by the erection of an 
oratory which became the parish church. 

The church has been much altered from its 
primitive transition period of construction. Two 
or three extra bays, destroyed by a fire, were 



TRANSITION CHURCHES 259 

torn dowiij thus giving the nave a shortened ef- 
fect. The church is of two epochs. At the begin- 
ning of the Xlllth century the first edifice was 
constructed in the primitive Gothic stjde. In the 
XVth ceqtury, having become too small, it was 
pulled down to build a larger one. In this recon- 
struction the part of the nave and right aisle 
which form the base of the tower was preserved, 
and this old part is very interesting. Two old 
pillars belonging to this Xlllth century con- 
struction are readily recognizable, near the pres- 
ent entrance of the church. They bear certain 
points of resemblance to some of the work at 
Rheims, Amiens, and the first pillars of the nave 
at Notre-Dame. 

The ornamentation is of the Xlllth and XVth 
centuries. All this sculpture of Saint-Germain-de- 
Charonne, despite the mutilations it has under- 
gone, has lost little of its grandeur and grace. 
In the leafage the vine motif reigns supreme, 
and we sense at once the proximity of the grape 
country. 

Remnants of old glass may still be found in 
the end windows of the aisles. Just within the 
entrance is the XVI Ith century painting of the 
consecration of Sainte-Genevieve by Saint-Ger- 
main-l'Auxerrois. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE TURNING POINT: 

SAINT-MARTIN-DES-CHAMPS 

Having quickened the appetite with a torn of 
the lesser churches of the transition period, the 
loiterer should now feel primed for the full en- 
joyment of the most perfect specimen of the 
epoch, in which one can hest trace the actual 
passing from Roman to Gothic. This is the 
abbatial church of Saint Martin of the Fields. 

Of all the ancient religious establishments of 
Paris, this old priory retains best its monastic 
aspect. Instead of the general destruction which 
was the fate of most of these old monasteries at 
the time of the Revolution, when their orders were 
suppressed, Saint-Martin was passed intact first 
to a manufactory of arms, then, in 1798, to the 
installation of the then newly founded Conserva- 
toire des Arts et Metiers, still within its protect- 
ing enclosure. 

The original idea of such an institution is at- 
tributed to Descartes, though not put into execu- 
tion until 1775, more than an hundred years later 

260 



SAINT-MARTIN-DES-CHAMPS 261 

than the death of the philosopher. Vaucanson, 
the celebrated engineer, organized the school and 
bequeathed to the state his collection of machines, 
instruments, tools, etc., for the benefit of the work- 
ing classes, and, in 1794, the conservatory was 
founded by a decree of the Convention. The 
museum is combined with a technical school, the 
classes in which are free. 

The bequest and scheme for the benefit of 
the workers was so in harmony with the spirit 
directing the saner side of the Revolution, and 
the establishment so well fitted to receive the in- 
stallation that the transformation from monastery 
to technical school was effected without demoli- 
tion. 

According to the ancient tradition the original 
priory, of which this vast enclosure was the out- 
growth, was erected where Saint-Martin, arriving 
near the gates of Paris, cured a leper by pressing 
him against his breast. The priory became an 
abbey celebrated under the second race of French 
kings, but having been ruined by wars and other 
disorders of early days, Henri I, the grandson 
of Hugues Capet, rebuilt and refounded the 
abbey in 1060, and liis son, Philippe I, confirmed 
and increased the donation by his chapter of 
1067, placing the new foundation under the abbey 



262 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

of Cluny, of which flourishing order it was the 
third off-shoot. 

As the monastery stood without the walls of 
Paris, it was enclosed by strong, high walls of its 
own, battlemented and turreted, constructed by 
the prior Hugues IV, and of this ancient defence 
is left a picturesque round tower in the Rue Saint- 
JNIartin, at the corner of the Rue Vertbois, ceded 
by the monks to the city, in 1712, for the erection 
of a fountain, which still exists. 

The monks at this time themselves tore down 
the old wall which once ran along the line of 
the present Rue Saint-Martin, replacing it by 
domiciles for their inhabitants, and destroyed the 
principal entrance, which had been restored in 
1575 and decorated with statues of the two royal 
founders. Further " improvements " undertaken 
by them necessitated the destruction of the old 
chapter house, the tower of the archives, the 
chapel of the Virgin, and the famous cloister, 
which contained stone statues of three genera- 
tions of kings, Henri I, Philippe I, and Louis 
VI, and which Piganiol de la Force describes as 
unequalled in Paris for its size and the number 
of its columns. 

The priory of Saint Martin of the Fields was 



SAINT-MARTIN-DES-CHAMPS 263 

conceived upon a scale which destined it to be the 
most magnificent rehgious organization of France, 
and was governed by a long succession of illus- 
trious priors, of which cardinal Richelieu was one. 

The old church, so curiously adapted to the 
uses of a museum of hydraulic machinery, pre- 
serves its exterior intact, with certain additions, 
and can be seen fairly well by making a tour of 
the adjoining streets. It is of two epochs, the 
actual church being composed of a nave built in 
the XlVth century and a choir and apse of the 
Xllth century. A tower, of which we still see 
the base, rose from the right-hand side, and of 
the two tourolles on the fa9ade, the right-hand 
one is original, the other having been added to 
balance the composition during recent restora- 
tions. 

The apse of Saint-Martin's, considered to be 
an importation from Picardie, is thought to have 
been inspired by the abbe Suger, when he de- 
sired to build the abbey of Saint-Denis. Au- 
thorities fix the date between the years 1116 and 
1140. This apse is a remarkable document upon 
tlie origin of Gotliic architecture. It must be 
classed with the churches of Saint-Etienne of 
Beauvais, Notre-Dame of Poissy, and of Saint- 



264 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Maclou of Pontoise, in all of which we find the 
first traces of that style of which the cathedral of 
Saint-Denis is the point of arrival. 

To gain entrance to the church one must pass 
through the main part of the museum, stepping 
at length through a modest door in the left side 
of the nave. The nave is long, high, and wide, 
without aisles and without pillars. Its roof is 
of wood, arched and supported by beams of the 
simplest, frankest construction. There are six- 
teen side windows in pairs, surmounted each by a 
rosace, and the fa9ade is pierced by a large win- 
dow in four divisions, surmounted by six quatre- 
foils, and over all a pretty rose. The nave, de- 
nuded of all ecclesiastic suggestion and filled 
with airplanes and other objects of modern inven- 
tion, still holds a sense of tremendous power on 
the strength of its proportions alone. 

The apse, however, is the most interesting part 
of the edifice. It is lower than the nave by some 
half a dozen steps, which descend from the rear 
of the sanctuary. Here one steps upon large 
funeral stones with which the church was paved, 
and upon which may still be seen traces of nearly 
effaced effigies of the monks and priors interred 
beneath the choir. 

The apse is entirely of stone, very beautiful 



SAINT-MARTIN-DES-CHAMPS 265 

stone, cut with precision and care, its pillars in 
grouj3S and pairs not formed of monoliths but of 
stones of equal size and shape, cemented together. 
A large chapel with Roman windows at the back 
and windows slightly pointed at the sides, forms 
the centre of the round-point and a chain of 
smaller chapels links the apse to the nave. The 
construction of these chapels with their unde- 
cided arches in which the architect seems to have 
hesitated and experimented between full round- 
ness and varied degrees of pointing, is exceedingly 
curious. From this bizarre mixture and tentative 
design archaeologists have adjudged that the 
pointed arches of Saint-Martin's are the first 
which Paris knew, and that the edifice was one of 
the earliest in which the Gothic style battled 
against the Roman. 

The ornamentation of the apse is rich and 
varied. In the capitals of the twin columns which 
make the tour of the choir, the sculpture passes 
from something Byzantine in its elements through 
the Roman forms to the point where the Gothic 
flower begins to spring. All the carving is strong 
and able, indicating the hand of sculptors of the 
first quality. 

A Xllth century Virgin in wood, from this 
church, was transported to Saint-Denis. 



266 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

The refectory of the priory, now converted 
into a hbrary, is considered a chef-d'oeuvre of the 
early XII I th century, and by its extreme hght- 
ness and beauty justifies the tradition that it is 
the work of Pierre de Montereau, the talented 
architect of Saint-Louis. If it be indeed the 
work of this architect it will be a youthful pro- 
duction, a forerunner of the Sainte-Chapelle and 
the Virgin's chapel of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, 
yet is there nothing tentative in its handsome 
proportions and its rich detail. Here is indeed 
no longer the bizarre indecision of the apse of 
the church, but an art in definitive possession of 
its style. 

It was an architect of more than ordinary 
prowess who knew how to throw the weight of the 
vaulting of this high and narrow building upon 
the walls with their buttresses, and leave himself 
free to support the roof by this file of tall, 
slender pillars, which, passing along the middle 
of the length, divides the interior into two naves. 
Mullioned windows in pairs, surmounted by 
pretty rosaces, fill seven of the eight bays into 
which the long interior is divided, on the north 
side, and two more pierce the west wall. This 
arrangement is repeated in blind windows on the 



SAINT-MARTIN-DES-CHAMPS 267 

opposite walls, rendering the interior perfectly 
symmetrical. 

Placed rather high on the north side of the 
hall and taking the place of the second pair of 
windows, is the reader's pulpit, one of the oldest 
and most beautiful refectory pulpits in existence. 
Built against the wall and j^rojecting therefrom, 
so that the voice might be heard by the most 
distant of the diners, this pulpit is reached by a 
stairway in graceful openwork stone, enclosed in 
the thickness of the wall. Viollet-le-Duc, the 
famous restorer of Gothic architecture, allows 
himself a burst of professional enthusiasm for this 
pulpit: 

" On remarque7'a la disposition ingenieuse de 
Vescalier montant a cette chaire, pratique dans 
Vepaisseur du mur; it n'est clos du cote de I'in- 
terieur que par une claire-voie; mais pour eviter 
que la charge du mur au-dessus 7iecrasdt cette 
claire-voie, le constructeur a pose un arc de de- 
charge qui vient la soulager, et afin que cet arc 
ne poussdt pas, les premiers pieds-droits de la 
claire-voie ont He inclines de fa^on a op poser une 
butee a cette poussee. Aujourd'hui on de- 
manderait d'user d'artifices pour ohtenir ce re- 
sultat de hutee sans le rendre apparent; au 



268 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

coinmence merit du Xiii^ siecle, on n'y mettait pas 
autrement de finesses." 

Formerly a painting by Louis Sylvestre, repre- 
senting the life of Saint-Benoit, ornamented the 
attic of the refectory, now replaced by symbolic 
figures of the arts and sciences. The decoration 
of Saint-Martin dividing his cloak with the 
beggar is by Steinheil. This incident is sup- 
posed to have taken place at Amiens. 

In conclusion one cannot too much admire the 
masterly execution of the capitals of the columns, 
the consoles, the escutcheons which lock the ribs 
of the vaulting, and the roses above the windows. 
The whole spirit of this room breathes elevation 
and nobility. 



CHAPTER XIII 
DAGOBERT'S BASILICA: SAINT-DENIS 

But for a long time the loiterer, if he be at all 
attuned to the pitch intended, will have been long- 
ing to break away from the leading strings which 
detain him in such abstract churches as these just 
described, and to make his way to that dingy 
suburban town, situated to the north of Paris, in 
the valley of the Seine, and distant but a few 
kilometres from the fortifications, whose sole 
Eesthetic interest is the amazing Gothic church of 
Saint-Denis. 

Though celebrated for several reasons, Saint- 
Denis owes its chief renown to the royal tombs of 
which it has become the repository, a truly glorious 
collection of mediaeval and renaissance sculptures. 
From the time of Dagobert (628), who conceived 
the cathedral, to Louis XVIII, who, after the 
despoliation of the Revolution restored the chap- 
ter, Saint-Denis had been the sepulchre of the 
kings of France. The series of tombs commenced 
with that of Dagobert (the last great Merovingien, 
great-great-grandson of Clovis), included eight 



270 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Carlovingiens, M'ith but few excejDtions the kings 
of the third race, from Hugues Capet to Henri 
II and his sons (the last of the House of Valois), 
and the Bourbons down to Louis XVIII. 

The violation of these tombs during the Revolu- 
tion, the transference of most of the important 
monuments to the shelter of the Petits-Augustins, 
their restitution to Saint-Denis accompanied by 
numerous homeless effigies, tombs, and statues torn 
from destroyed churches, convents, monasteries, 
and abbeys, placed pele-inele in Lenoir's museum, 
thence chased out again by the suppression of the 
museum and the turning over of the convent 
buildings to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, all this 
tragic history belongs to a later survey. 

At the moment it is the cathedral itself which 
interests us, this cathedral in which, as we have 
said, Gothic architecture reached its point of ar- 
rival. The church as we see it, for it has passed 
through many strains of rebuilding, demolition, 
restoration, is still eloquent of the transition — its 
right-hand tower is almost pure Romanesque — 
but its secondary apse and its semi-circular chapels 
are considered as the first perfected attempt at 
Gothic, and carry us a step beyond the experi- 
ments of Saint-Martin-des-Champs. 

The name and fame of the cathedral are derived 




Photo A. Giraudon 

THE MAKTYKDOM OF SAINT-DENIS. PRIMITIVE FRENCH PAINTING, ABOUT 1400, 
ATTRIBUTED TO JEAN MAI.OUEL. LOUVRE MUSEUM. 




Plioto X 



INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL OF SAINT-DIM.^ 

SHOWING THE ASCENT TO THE AMBULATOKV AND CHAPELS. 

TO THE LEFT THE TOMB OF HENRI II AND CATHERINE DE MEDICIS. 




Photo X 



INTERIOB OF THE CATHEDRAL OP SAINT-DENIS. 
THE TRANSEPT WITH THE TOMB OF 
FRANCOIS I AND CLAUDE DE FRANCE. 



SAINT-DENIS 273 

from the abbey founded bj^ Dagobert on the spot 
where, according to tradition, Saint-Denis halted 
his fateful march, from the summit of Mont- 
martre, and was interred. 

The epoch of the founder of Christianity in 
Paris is uncertain; ecclesiastical historians hesitate 
between the 1st, Ilnd, and even the IVth centuries. 
His origin is unknown, even, according to the 
sceptics, mythical. Whether he was Denis Areo- 
pagite, converted in Athens by the preaching of 
Saint Paul, commissioned to announce the doc- 
trine of Christ to the Parisians, or whether he 
was another person of the same name sent to the 
Gauls about the middle of the IlIrd century and 
put to death during the persecution ordered by 
Decius has not been decided. 

His history is written in monuments and 
popular traditions, and this history asserts and 
constantly reiterates that the founder and first 
bishop of the church of Paris was called Denis, 
that he was assisted in his apostolic work by the 
priest Rustique, and the deacon Eleuthere, and 
that all three sealed their accomplished mission 
with their blood. 

Not two centuries ago there was still shown at 
Notre-Dame-des-Champs, at that time remote 
from the walls of Paris, a crypt where Saint- 



274 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Denis called together the first of the faithful; at 
Saint-Benoit a chapel built on the site of an 
oratory where Saint-Denis had first invoked the 
name of the Trinity; at Saint-Denis-de-la-Chartre, 
the prison where Christ came himself to fortify 
the confessors by administering his body and 
blood; at Saint-Denis-du-Pas the place where the 
trio suffered the first tortures; and finally the 
summit of Montmartre where their heads fell 
under the sword. 

" The holy bishop Denis, and his two compan- 
ions," wrote Hilduin, abbot of Saint-Denis in the 
IXth century, " suffered their glorious martyrdom 
within view of the city of the Parisians, upon a 
hill previously called Mount of Mercury, in 
honour of a god in particular favour amongst the 
Gauls, but thereafter known as Mount of the 
Martyrs in memory of the saints who died there." 

The origin of the church of Saint-Denis is sub- 
ject to two interpretations. According to one a 
pious woman called Catulle, having assisted the 
three martyrs during their imprisonment, dared to 
gather up the mutilated remains and buried them 
in a field belonging to herself, later included in 
the possessions of the abbey of Saint-Denis. We 
know that long before the invasion of the Francs 
a basilica, superbly ornamented and famous for 



SAINT-DENIS 275 

the miracles wrought there, was raised upon 
Catulle's field. 

According to another version the early church 
succeeded a temple erected to Bacchus, while the 
story of Saint-Denis himself is a legend of pagan 
origin, the name Denis being indeed a derivative 
from the Greek name of the wine god, Dionysos. 

The explanation is as ingenious as it is impious, 
and the author gives himself to its elaboration 
with a certain zest. Here it is: 

It is well known that the country known under 
the name of the tie de France was once a grape- 
growing country. All the hills near the Seine 
were planted with vines and no department of 
France bore more fruit in proportion to its extent. 

In such a country Bacchus was greatly re- 
spected. Per Bacco was a familiar oath and tem- 
ples were raised to the god of wine and offerings 
made in the interest of the crops. As we know, 
most of the early Christian churches repose upon 
the ruins of temples or altars dedicated in remoter 
centuries to pagan deities. Notre-Dame covers 
the foundation of an altar raised to a nautical 
divinity, Saint-Germain-des-Pres stands upon the 
site of a temple to Isis, Saint-Pierre-de-Mont- 
martre succeeds Mercury, and Saint-Denis dis- 
places Bacchus. 



276 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Our impious author leaves nothing unaccounted 
for. Rustique and Eleuthere, the companions of 
Saint-Denis, he figures to have been created out 
of the supposed legend of the temple: Dionysio 
Rustico Eleuthero — Dionysio Frenchified becomes 
Denys or Denis; Rustico, because his altar was in 
the country; and Eleuthero or free, one of the 
surnames of Bacchus. 

Along comes Christianity to the Gauls and the 
peasants receive the new faith but hold instinc- 
tively to the old traditions of paganism, and myths 
become mysteries. To form an alliance between 
the old beliefs — vague, effaced, but persistent, was 
easy to a clever pious legendary. He invents a 
martyr, canonizes the pagan divinity, while for 
the legend of Saint-Denis' miraculous march from 
Montmartre to the site of the cathedral, this be- 
comes simply the glorified history of the god over- 
come by wine, who loses his head yet carries it 
with him. 

Be that as it may the first edifice erected in 
honour of the first bishop of Paris fell into ruins 
in the Vth century and Sainte-Genevieve rebuilt 
it, while Gregoire de Tours describes the miracles 
worked in this temple for the cure of pilgrims 
and the chastisement of sinners. 

The magnificence with which Dagobert rebuilt 



SAINT-DENIS 277 

and invested the church and abbey quite casts the 
memory of the earliest constructions into the 
shade. Despite his ferocity, this last powerful 
Merovingien had the sentiment of art, but, as 
founder of religious monuments or as sovereign, 
his pencliant for rapacity always breaks out. 
Thus to adorn Saint-Denis he carried off innu- 
merable riches and ornaments from other sacred 
edifices, as his predecessors had done before him, 
contributing to the glories of the treasure his 
pious thefts. 

In spite of all his vices Fredegonde's grandson 
was a popular king. It is to be presumed that, in 
his large way, he had qualities of the heart, and 
his name lives in many an old song, as le hon roi 
Dagohert, as well as that of his companion, Saint- 
Eloy, the king's artistic goldsmith, who by a set 
of chances as curious as those which befell the 
naif Koko became, as we have seen, treasurer, dip- 
lomat, bishop, founder of monasteries, saint! 

From the beginning of his reign Dagobert 
undertook the rebuilding of the church. He deco- 
rated it with precious marbles, magnificent tapes- 
tries, bronze doors, vases of gold set with jewels. 
Saint-Eloy chiselled with his own hands the tomb 
of the martyrs and the great gold cross erected 
before the entrance to the choir, and, in order that 



278 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

so handsome a monument should have a dedication 
worthy of it, says tradition, Jesus Christ himself, 
surrounded by a glorious company of saints and 
martyrs assisted at the celebration. In one of the 
chapels the place is still shown, upon request, 
where the divine cortege made its entrance into 
the basilica of Dagobert. 

After Dagobert there were restorations by 
Pepin and Charlemagne, restorations almost com- 
pletely obliterated, presumably by the terrible 
disasters following the Norman invasion and the 
civil wars of Charlemagne's reign, for, during the 
interval between Charlemagne and Louis VII 
the church probably shared the fate of most of the 
monasteries of northern France, though no actual 
account has been preserved. The architecture of 
the central part of the crypt — its round arches and 
historic capitals — indicate the reconstructions of the 
Xlth century, while of the vaunted magnificence 
of the church of Dagobert and the early Carlo- 
vingiens no material souvenirs remain except a 
few columns and marble capitals, standing upright 
against the walls of the crypt. 

About the year 1091 a lad of poor parentage 
entered the abbey of Saint-Denis. This was 
Suger, destined to become in his mature years 
abbot of the monastery and famous as ecclesiastic. 



SAINT-DENIS 279 

statesman, and historian. Louis VI was his pupil 
and he was the friend and counsellor of both 
Louis VI and Louis VII. 

Immediately upon his appointment to the gov- 
ernment of the abbey he put into action his long 
cherished ambition to rebuild the cathedral upon 
a scale of magnificence of which we still see in 
the existing church many evidences. He built 
rapidly the portail, the tower, the choir, the nave, 
and finally the lower chapels of the chevet and the 
apse which surmounts them. This work antedated 
Notre-Dame by about a quarter of a century. 

Suger superintended everything — the quarrying 
of the stone, the choice of the woods, the design 
of the windows, the making of the cross and the 
sacred vessels, and composed the Latin couplets 
which described the objects of his concern. Under 
one of the three rows of arches above the main 
entrance runs an inscription recording the erection 
of the church by the abbe Suger, minister to 
Louis VI, with abbatial funds, and its consecra- 
tion, in 1140. 

The porch, formed by the first three bays of 
the church, contains some remains of the basilica 
of Pepin and Charlemagne, the secondary apse 
and its semi-circular chapels were built under 
Suger. The nave proper and most of the choir and 



280 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

transepts date from the reign of Saint-Louis, and, 
as we have said, are considered as the first per- 
fected Gothic. The transepts have fine fa9ades 
of the Xllth and Xlllth centuries, each with two 
unfinished towers, and had the plan been fully 
carried out there would have been six towers be- 
sides a central spire, in lead. The fa9ade orig- 
inally carried a spire on the north tower, which 
twice destroyed by lightning was finally done 
away with in the last restorations. 

The abbey flourished exceedingly and uninter- 
ruptedly until the last years of the reign of the 
House of Valois. Louis IX and Philippe le 
Hardi made extensive repairs which occupied half 
a century (1231-1281), and the XlVth century 
added the lateral chapels of the nave, one after 
another. The last important additions were made 
under Henri II and Catherine de Medicis, who 
constructed a sumptuous chapel, known as the 
Chapelle des Valois, for the tombs of the princes 
of their race. This chapel, in the form of a 
rotunda, joined the church on the northern flank 
of the apse. It was destroyed during the regency 
of Philippe d'Orleans, who transported its fine 
columns to the Pare Monceau, where, forming a 
semi-circular Corinthian colonnade behind an oval 
piece of water, they simulate ancient ruins. The 




LA NAUMACHIE; PARC MONCEAU. 
CO>"STRUCTED FROM THE RUINS OF THE 
CHAPELLE DES VALOIS AT SAIXT-DENIS. 



SAINT-DENIS 283 

connection is clear, since the Pare Monceau was a 
property bought, in 1778, by Phihppe d'Orleans 
— Phihppe Egahte — under whose direction it was 
laid out as a garden. This Naumachie, as it was 
called, built in imitation of the circular pools of 
Roman origin for spectacular naval combats, was 
a great attraction in its day, and still forms an 
appealing feature of the park. 

With Catherine de Medicis, Saint-Denis reached 
its zenith and the next century saw its rapid de- 
cline. Under the influence of Madame de Main- 
tenon, Louis XIV suppressed the abbey and its 
revenues were turned over to Saint-Cyr to enrich 
the king's gift to his mistress. The reign of Louis 
XV demolished the buildings of the old monas- 
tery, after which came the Revolution with its 
wholesale demolition of tombs and degradation of 
the church, which became successively a " Temple 
of Reason," a depot for artillery, a warehouse for 
feed and flour, while awaiting threatened destruc- 
tion. This was a time of strong compromises and 
in order to save even part of the magnificent 
cathedral its friends wTre obliged to offer it as a 
public market. 

Already its roof had been taken off and the 
glass of its many windows broken or removed. 
The chapels were conveniently turned into stalls, 



284 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

to which their shape and disposition readily rec- 
ommended them. From this grave peril the Con- 
cordat saved the church in 1806, when an imperial 
decree made Saint-Denis the seat of a chapter 
and the tomb of a new dynasty. 

" From Dodon, the first abbot of Saint-Denis, 
who lived in 627," says Guilhermy, " to Jean- 
Fran^ois-Paul de Gondi, cardinal de Retz, who 
was the last, seventy-three abbots governed the 
monastery. Amongst them were Fulrad, Hilduin, 
Suger, Mathieu de Vendome, Charles the Bald, 
the kings Eudes, Robert, Hugues Capet, the car- 
dinals of Bourbon, of Lorraine, of Guise, Mazarin, 
and the famous coadjutor so celebrated for his 
exploits, his memoirs, and his penitence." 

The fairly thorough examination which we have 
made of Notre-Dame will render easy the reading 
of Saint-Denis to those who have, by now, de- 
veloped a taste for Gothic lines and ornament. 
The three doors which open in the west fa9ade 
have undergone much restoration — the north door 
is wholly modern and utterly atrocious — but the 
curious sculptures with which Suger filled the 
tympanums and voussoirs of the others are readily 
distinguishable from the modern restorations and 
additions. 

The central door, like that of Notre-Dame, has 



SAINT-DENIS 285 

for motive the familiar Last Judgment with its 
contrasts of joy and sorrow, so popular with the 
sculptors of the Moyen Age. The lower panel 
contains a particularly spirited scene of the rising 
of the dead upon the Day of Judgment, and in 
the archivolt there is, to the right, the fantastic pro- 
cession of the damned, scourged by the usual 
devils and falling into the fires of the Inferno, 
while to the left an animated representation of 
Father Abraham receiving with glee the elect 
upon his bosom, where he holds them within the 
folds of a napkin, after the manner of a benevo- 
lent kangaroo. 

The south door is given to the martyrdom of 
Saint-Denis and his companions. The saints and 
their executioners are figured in the voussoir, and 
in the tympanum Christ appears to Saint-Denis 
and his two companions in their prison. In the 
tympanuni of the north door a poor caricature 
of Gothic style replaces a mosaic which Suger 
brought from Italy especially for the place and 
which disappeared in the various rebuildings of 
this tower. 

Suger made two diplomatic voyages into Italy, 
which fact accounts for the slight Italian influence 
still noticeable in the facade, such as the alternate 
courses of white stone and black marble in the 



286 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

narrow, pointed bays which flank the middle rose 
window. 

At the end of the north transept is another door 
of interesting workmanship, which has preserved 
six large statues, presumably double personalities 
representing the first kings of the Capetien 
dynasty — Hugues Capet, Robert the Pious, Henri 
I, Philippe I, Louis VI, and Louis VII — under 
the guise of ancestors of Jesus Christ. In the 
tympanum is again the history of Saint-Denis, his 
condemnation and punishment. 

The arrangement of the interior of the church is 
full of character and individuality, differing con- 
siderably from the usual plan. We enter upon a 
sort of interior porch, composed of the first two 
bays, which, as we have said, remain from the 
church of the abbe Suger, strongly built to sup- 
port the towers and consequently more resistant 
than the nave. Thus we look down into the nave 
and across to the choir and crypt, the choir raised 
by a considerable number of steps. 

The nave, as we see it, built under Saint-Louis 
and Philippe le Hardi, by the abbots Eudes 
Clement and Mathieu de Vendome, extends eight 
bays, the first blind, the last seven filled their com- 
plete width witli immense windows. The roof of 
the nave has been criticized for its round arch, an 



SAINT-DENIS 287 

uncommon fault in constructions of the period, 
and unsparingly revealed by the clarity of the 
garish modern windows, which date for the most 
part from the reign of Louis-Philippe. The ex- 
plosions at Cour Neuve in 1918 shattered some 
of the windows, and at the moment there are many 
bare spaces in the roses as well as in the windows 
of the clerestory. 

We have remarked already how Suger gave of 
his superfluity some glass to Notre-Dame, in 
which, having himself erected a similar monument, 
he must have taken a paternal interest. By his 
care the windows of Saint-Denis were filled with 
brilhant glass of which the few remaining frag- 
ments attest the extraordinary quality and beauty. 
During the Revolution many precious panels, 
hastily dismounted, were packed in the storage 
rooms of the Musee des Petits-Augustins — Lenoir 
saved what he could — but only a very little was 
restored to Saint-Denis and no one knows what 
became of the remainder. 

The Virgin's Chapel, in the centre of the apse, 
contains most of the original glass which was 
saved and the remainder occupies a window in the 
adjoining chapel on the left. The subjects de- 
picted in small medallions are mystical, partly 
inspired by the Apocalypse, partly dealing with 



288 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

the life of Moses, and fragments of a series rep- 
resenting the Tree of Jesse. A careful examina- 
tion of them reveals the original inscriptions which 
Suger fm-nished as explanatory of the figures, and 
one medalhon in particular shows Suger himself 
prostrate before the Virgin, who receives the angel 
of the Annunciation. 

Such other fragments of ancient glass as exist 
have been gathered from other churches and in- 
clude some XVI th century glass bought at Rouen 
and liberally restored. All that is antique has 
been distributed throughout the chapels of the 
apse interlarded with modern imitations, but the 
sensitive eye will have no difficulty in detecting the 
real and rejecting the spurious, and while much 
of the fragmentary assemblage is interesting, the 
three windows in the middle of the round-point are 
the only ones of complete importance. 

The modern glass with which the church is filled 
represents an enormous outlay of funds with 
disastrous results. Louis-Philippe is the culprit, 
his idea being no less than to decorate the church 
with a series of colossal figures of the kings and 
queens of France beginning with the first race. 
The portraits done against blood-red backgrounds 
with strong yellows make really a vile disturbance 
in this beautiful cathedral and it is difficult to com- 



SAINT-DENIS 289 

prehend an epoch that could have countenanced 
them. If Louis-PhiHj^pe wanted to compensate 
the church for the depredations of the Revolution- 
ists, he succeeds only in inspiring similar impulses. 

The windows of this church are unhappily many 
and we must see much history thus violently pre- 
sented, such as the life of Saint-Louis, the restora- 
tion of the cathedral under Napoleon, the inter- 
ment of Louis XVIII, etc. The Tree of Jesse 
again occupies the north rose, while the subject 
of its companion, to the south, is the Creation, 
the signs of the zodiac, and the months and sea- 
sons. The legend of Saint-Denis, his martyrdom, 
burial, and the various reconstructions of his 
church from Saint-Genevieve to Saint-Louis, oc- 
cupy the thirteen upper windows of the choir. 

Let us return a moment to the Chapel of the 
Virgin, to the windows placed in 1150 by the 
abbe Suger. They are in small designs, a series 
of episodes in lozenges or medallions, and the part 
which receives the light is prepared so as to soften 
the passage of the sun's rays. The glass of the 
Sainte-Chapelle, of which the greater part has 
been preserved, is a full century later than that 
which Suger ordered for his church. We know 
nothing of the artists employed by the abbot in 
their design and execution, almost eight centuries 



290 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

ago, yet their vigorous handling suggests strong 
personaHty and entire proficiency. Cimabue was 
the first known painter of windows. He lived a 
century later than the artists of the windows of 
Notre-Dame and Saint-Denis. 



CHAPTER XIV 
THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE 

In the Sainte-Chapelle, now irrelevantly at- 
tached to the Palais de Justice, but built, eight 
hundred years ago, to form part of the ancient 
palace of the kings of France, we reach the very 
acme of Gothic supremacy. 

In all the monuments which we have visited 
till now we have been thrilled by the evident traces 
of the mighty struggle which marked the transi- 
tion from Romanesque to Gothic — nowhere more 
convincingly presented than in the church of 
Saint-^Iartin. The churches and buildings finished 
in the Xlllth century are nearly all Romanesque 
at the base with a superstructure showing Gothic 
principles grafted on an intermediate or transi- 
tion style. Since the construction of an important 
edifice usually covered a century or more, old 
styles declined while others were born and de- 
veloped during the process. 

The Sainte-Chapelle, on the contrary, is one of 
those rare types which characterize an epoch. Its 
construction covered the briefest space of time, for, 

291 



292 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

begun in 1245 and finished in 1248, it was the 
work of one artist, done under one inspiration. 

Built for Saint-Louis by his gifted architect, 
Pierre de Montereau, at the height of his career, 
and destined to contain the Crown of Thorns and 
a portion of the True Cross, the Sainte-Chapelle 
is not to be considered as an ordinary chapel, but 
as a glorified chasse or shrine, a hallowed casket, 
upon which were lavished all the riches that art 
and industry could produce at this time. 

Saint-Louis spared nothing to make the Sainte- 
Chapelle the most brilliant jewel of his realm. 
From all times this little marvel of the Moyen 
Age has been considered a chef-d'oeuvre. It has 
a lightness and fineness in its ensemble, a research 
in the execution of its details and accessories un- 
equalled in other monuments of the Xlllth cen- 
tury, and though classed as belonging to the first 
period of pointed Gothic, forms almost a style 
apart. 

Into the plans of the king, Pierre de Montereau 
threw himself heart and soul. The speed with 
which the work was conceived and executed, 
while astonishing, was the chief contributing fac- 
tor of its unity and completeness. At most, 
Viollet-le-Duc assures us, the erection of the 
chapel, from foundation to completion, did not 




OUR MOTHER OF SORROWS. 

TERRA COTTA PAINTED. 

FORMERLY IX THE SAIXTE-CHAPELLE 

NOW IN THE LOUVRE. 



I'lioto A. Giraudon 




INTERIOR OF THE UIM'EB CIIAI'EL. SAINTE-CHAPEI.LE. 



THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE 295 

exceed five years. " If','' says this distinguished 
authority, " one observe with scrupulous attention 
the archaeological character of the Sainte-Chapelle, 
one is forced to recognize the exactitude of these 
historic dates. The method of construction and 
ornamentation belongs to this minute fraction of 
the Xlllth century. During the reigns of 
Philippe Auguste and Saint-Louis progress in 
architecture was so rapid that a period of five 
years introduced appreciable changes; whereas in 
this edifice the greatest unity reigns from base to 
summit." 

To the pious haste which the king showed to 
enshrine appropriately the precious relics of which 
he had become possessed, the population, equally 
enthused, added its vigorous cooperation. We are 
to suppose that skilled workmen considered it a 
privilege to contribute their labour to enhance the 
splendour of tHe reliquary intended for the chief 
treasures of the Christian world. We know that 
eight hundred thousand livres tourmois (something 
over two and a half millions of francs) were em- 
ployed in the construction and decoration of the 
chapel and in the acquisition of the relics it 
enclosed. And this sum, though considered of a 
vastness at a time when the principal chaplains 
were esteemed rich upon a revenue of three hun- 



296 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

dred and sixty-eight francs, must have gone 
largely to the emperor of Constantinople, from 
whom the relics were purchased, and for the raw 
material employed. 

The walls, the pillars, the columns were overlaid 
with gold and illuminated with the finest and most 
brilliant of colours, incrusted with precious stones 
and embellished with choice enamels; while the 
light of day, itself, was admitted through the im- 
mense windows of which the upper story seems 
entirely composed, only after having been passed 
through precious coloured glass, designed with 
multiple imagery, in dominating notes of blue 
and red. 

One of these windows recounts, in a series of 
sixty-seven panels, the history of the treasures of 
the Sainte-Chapelle in detail from the time that 
Baudouin II, fifth Latin emperor of the Orient, 
decided, in 1237, to cede the sacred souvenirs of 
the Passion of Christ to Saint-Louis, to the mo- 
ment of their triumphal entry into the repository 
prepared for them. 

History, chronicles, and popular tradition tell 
with what demonstrations of piety Louis IX, hav- 
ing secured the relics for France, in 1239, brought 
them into Paris. It was the poverty of the impe- 



THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE 297 

rial treasury of Constantinople that induced 
Baudouin to sell them at a time when his country 
was menaced by wars on all sides. For safety the 
relics had been already confided to the care of the 
Venetians and were deposited at San Marco. 
There Saint-Louis sent an escort to receive them, 
and setting out himself with his queen, his 
brothers, various bishops and other dignitaries, 
met the procession at Villeneuve-l'Archeveque, 
near Sens, which was the seat of the archbishop 
of the diocese of Paris. 

Saint-Louis, aided by his brother, the comte 
d'Artois, carried on his shoulders the j^avilion 
containing the Crown of Thorns, and thus 
charged, clad only in a tunic, he trod barefoot 
the streets of Sens and Paris, filled with a re- 
ligious enthusiasm which later he was to employ 
against the infidels in the Holy Wars. 

Later, in 1241, he carried with the same pro- 
found humility, his hands covered with a cloth, 
the cross of gold with the double branch received 
from the Byzantine emperor. The relics were 
placed provisionally in the chapel of Saint- 
Nicolas, which Louis le Gros had built within 
the walls of the Palais. 

It was upon the site of this chapel, Saint- 



298 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Nicolas, that the king, finding himself possessed 
of such riches, resolved to build a shrine worthy 
of their reception. 

The architect of the Sainte-Chapelle was Pierre 
de Montereau, the same who built the famous 
Virgin's Chapel of the abbey of Saint-Germain- 
des-Pres. The plan is simple and elegant, the 
two chapels, one over the other, is a character- 
istic of the epoch. Saint-Louis, himself, placed 
the corner-stone, in 1245, and on April 25, 1248, 
the chapels were consecrated, the upper one, re- 
served to the king and the royal family, by Eudes 
de Chateauroux, bishop of Tusculum, the pope's 
legate in France, under the title of Sainte- 
Couronne et Sainte-Croix ; and the lower chapel 
by Philippe Berruier, bishop of Bourges, under 
the invocation of the Sainte-Vierge. The lower 
chapel served for officers of the second order at- 
tached to the palace. The church was thus divided 
into two floors to correspond with the divisions of 
the palace, the proper entrances being from the 
palace by means of the doubb porch. The king 
thus arrived on foot without going outside. 

When built the Sainte-Chapelle stood within a 
wide space and was visible in its ensemble from all 
sides. Now the north side of the chapel is com- 
pletely masked by the modern Palais, while its 



THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE 299 

free parts are circumscribed and encroached upon 
by a totally irrelevant and hostile environment. 
No setting could be less promising, no approach 
less inviting than this restricted court, with its 
heavy, ugly paving, yielding grudgingly the few 
square feet of breathing space before the master- 
piece. 

Like all the churches of the Middle Ages the 
apse of the Sainte-Chapelle is turned towards the 
east. We enter the enclosure therefore, from the 
Boulevard du Palais, from the rear and, walking 
about close to the stupid buildings which imprison 
the jewel, arrive by dint of much force of character 
and imagination to see the building a little as Pierre 
de Montereau intended it. 

As a chapel in the strict sense of the word, the 
edifice consists of a choir, without nave or tran- 
septs. The form is of an elegant simplicity, very 
compact, essentially a chasse, a casket on a large 
scale; everything in its design and in its details 
works out the primal thought, that we have before 
us the shrine of the Crown of Thorns. 

Though they are much more impressive from 
within, and one is always in haste to get inside, 
the windows even from without are the first thing 
which strikes the attention. The whole casket 
seems at first to be made of leaded glass, the whole 



300 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

of this precious upper chapel, which enclosed the 
relics, is supported entirely by its short, massive 
piers, the walls with their lofty windows, just 
separated by slender buttresses, merely enclose the 
interior, which is of a lightness extraordinarily 
spiritual. 

Everything in the exterior points upwards, with 
an effect of remarkable elevation. The great 
height of the building is very striking. The but- 
tresses which sustain all the weight of the vaulting 
rise to the full height of the sides between the 
windows and terminate in rich, foliated pinnacles. 
Between them gables, richly sculptured, surmount 
the stupendous height of the windows. The roof 
is extremely sharp and from its centre rises the 
truly exquisite fleche, though a third restoration, 
which seems to carry the spirit soaring to the 
skies. 

Statues of eight angels carrying the instruments 
of Passion are poised between the gables of the 
second story of the spire, and in the bays of the 
lower story stand the twelve apostles. At the 
ridge of the apse, upon the point of the gable, is 
an angel of heroic size, in lead, holding the pro- 
cessional cross. This figure turns on its axis by 
means of a mechanical device and shows succes- 



THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE 301 

sively the symbol of salvation to all points of the 
horizon. 

This spire is a restoration hy Lassus. The first 
one, placed by ^lontereau, liaving crumbled with 
age was succeeded by a second, under Charles 
VI, made by Robert Fouchier. The second spire 
was consumed by fire and replaced l)y Louis 
XIII, in 1630. The third spire was sacrificed in 
the Revolution, and the present erection dates 
from the last general restoration of the chapel 
under Louis-Philippe. It is in the flowery style 
of the second half of the XVth century and 
recalls the design of Fouchier. 

Geoffroy Deschaume, who worked upon the 
restorations of the facade of Notre-Dame, mod- 
elled the figures of this fleche, and Guilhermy, in 
a very complete monograph on the Sainte-Chapelle, 
tells us that the heads of the apostles are portraits 
of the people who contributed to the restoration of 
the chapel. 

The principal fa9ade shows two porches which 
give access to the two chapels, surmounted by a 
balustrade, above which is the great rose window, 
occupying the full width of the building. Above 
this again is a balustrade and two steeples which 
accompany the pointed gable. On the points of 



302 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

these steeples the crown of thorns is placed over 
the royal crown of France. Most of the fa9ade 
above the porches was rebuilt about the middle of 
the XVth century, under Charles VIII, whose 
device, crowned by two angels, occupies the middle 
of the second balustrade. The rose is handsome 
in the flamboyant style. 

The entrance to the lower chapel is below the 
present level of the court. Needless to say the 
sculpture of the doorway is modern, but the deco- 
ration of the stylobate, containing the towers of 
Castille, in honour of the mother of Saint-Louis, 
and the fleurs-de-lijs of the blazon of France, is 
the same. 

The lower chapel is full of mystery and sugges- 
tion. Forty short, stout pillars sustain the vault- 
ing, of which the keys, in sculptured chestnut 
wood, are very remarkable. The place is full of 
obscurity, since but little light penetrates the 
handsome triangular windo\vs. The floor is paved 
with thirty-four curious tombstones of the XlVth 
and XVth centuries, carved with the effigies of 
treasurers and canons of the chapel. Boileau the 
poet was buried amongst them — his remains after- 
wards removed to Saint-Germain-des-Pres — and 
amongst the famous tombs is that of the treasurer, 
Philippe de Rully, who died in 1400. 



THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE 303 

Old engravings of the building show an external 
stairway of forty-two steps, which mounted by a 
covered way to the upper chapel, though as we 
have said the proper entrance was through the 
palace. At present visitors mount by the tiny 
stone spiral, intended for the service, in the corner 
of the building near the entrance. 

From so unpropitious an entrance, climbing 
steeply, one arrives suddenly into the rear right- 
hand corner of the upper chapel. Perhaps the 
thing to do is to walk at once resolutely out upon 
the porch and give one's self the treat of coming 
upon the rich effect of the chapel as Saint-Louis 
saw it, coming from the palace, but this is some- 
thing I have scarcely ever had the courage to do. 
The interior so immediately grasps and holds one. 
I think on the whole that the effect is more in the 
spirit of the building when approached by means 
of this old mediaeval stairway, this mere hatch- 
way, whence, debouching into the heart of the 
exalted chamber, dazzled by the pure transparency 
of the windows which gleam on all sides, enveloped 
in the violet radiance compounded of the dominant 
blue and red rays which pierce the glass, one thinks 
to one's self, in the words of Jean de Jandun, " rav- 
ished to the skies," " introduced into one of the 
most beautiful chambers of Paradise." 



304 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Never were windows more jewel-like than these. 
One seems to stand in a palace of rubies and sap- 
phires, the glass is so pure in colour, so brilliant 
in its perfect clarity. One is first struck by the 
immense extent of the windows which mount to 
the turn of the vaultings and are separated only 
by the piers. The edifice would seem to have but 
little solidity were it not for the vigorous tone 
of its glass and the firm, geometric design which 
give it a fictitious strength. 

Of these marvellous and magnificent windows 
which form the chief interest of the interior,. there 
are fifteen — four, wide and high, fill as many bays 
each side of the big parallelogram, seven enclose 
its apse, the narrower bays unfolding in a half- 
circle like an open fan. These windows, mutilated 
during and after the Revolution, present a resto- 
ration, with original glass, so well done that 
Guilhermy assures us that Saint-Louis and Pierre 
de Montereau would find the splendour of their 
glass unchanged. 

As I write the task of remounting the windows, 
dismantled during the great war, has just been 
accomplished. As a rule statistics are boring and 
irrelevant, our purpose being appreciation pure 
and simple, but it means something, I think, to 
know that it took six weeks to take the windows 



THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE 305 

out and eight months to put them back. Last 
summer (1919) after the signing of peace, they, 
with many others, were exhibited at the Petit 
Palais. It was an opportunity that may never 
occur again to study them at close range and to 
become familiar with the processes of such expert 
work and the rarity of the ancient materials. 
Subjects barely decipherable in place were readily 
distinguishable and a wealth of faithful work was 
revealed. 

The series of windows begins with the first win- 
dow at the foot of the nave on the north side. Its 
ninety-one subjects cover the book of Genesis, 
depict the Creation, Adam and Eve, picture the 
first men, the Deluge, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and 
the history of Joseph. 

Subjects from the Old Testament fill seven win- 
dows of the nave and four of the apse; the Gospel 
story is told in the remaining three windows of the 
apse; and the fifteenth window, at the foot of the 
nave, on the south side, is devoted to a series of 
pictures which relate in careful detail the story 
of the Cross and the Crown of Thorns with their 
journey from Constantinople to Paris. 

This window, which for subject is most interest- 
ing, has sixty-seven panels, many containing rep- 
resentations of Saint-Louis, his brother Robert, 



306 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

the comte d'Artois, and a queen, probably Blanche 
de Castille, figures many tiiiies. The drawings 
are the work of artists who certainly saw the re- 
ception of the relics and who traced the chief cir- 
cumstances which passed under their ej'es. Who 
shall say that they may not be portraits of the 
principal characters as well? 

Each side of the nave, under the third windows, 
is a deep niche let into the wall, over which a 
figure of Christ in an attitude of benediction is 
surrounded by angels, bearing censers. These 
were places of honour reserved for the king, the 
queen, and the royal family. The oratory of the 
king is embellished with the fleur-de-lys; that of 
the queen with the towers of Castille. 

The altar (destroyed) was placed before the 
slender arcade which traverses the apse, somewhat 
in the manner of a rood-loft, but which, differing 
in intention, scarcely veils the sanctuary. Seven 
light, pointed arches are carried on fine, slender 
columns, embellished with glass mosaics and deco- 
rated with angels, gilded. The middle arch, wider 
than the others, supports a platform upon which 
rests the baldaquin of sculptured wood, where the 
relics of the chapel were exposed. The chasse, 
sparkling with jewels, thus dominated the whole 
chapel, and when, on solemn occasions, its panels 



THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE 307 

were partly opened to show the treasures of the 
tahernacle, it was like a radiant apparition of the 
celestial Jerusalem. 

Behind the arcade two spiral stairways in wood 
mount to the platform. That on the left is 
original. These, we are told, are the actual treads 
which Saint-Louis climbed piously to show to the 
people below the Crown of Thorns. 

The cliasse containing the great relics was 
locked with three keys. The king confided one 
to the care of his grand chamberlain, another to 
the treasurer of the chapel, and the third was kept 
by his goldsmith. The treasurer was usually a 
personage of high distinction. He wore the mitre 
and the ring, and is named in different deeds as 
'' le pajje de la Sainte-Cliapelle." Besides the 
treasurer the service of the chapel included a 
precentor, twelve canons, nineteen chaplains, and 
thirteen clerks. 

Volumes have been written about the treasures 
of the Sainte-Chapelle, with a brief for their 
authenticity. They included many curious things 
such as the robe worn by the infant Jesus which 
extended itself miraculously with his growth, the 
lance which pierced his side, one of the three 
nails, some blood of the Saviour, some milk from 
the Virgin, the rod of Moses. 



308 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

After the death of Saint-Louis the skull of that 
monarch was added to the collection, incased in a 
handsome reliquary in gilded silver made by 
Guillaume Juliani. This reliquary consisted of a 
life-size bust of the king, supported by four angels, 
the base resting upon the backs of four lions, and 
embellished with twenty-eight royal figures with 
their names. The souvenir itself, without the 
reliquary, had belonged to the treasury of Saint- 
Denis, but Philippe le Bel obtained permission from 
the pope to transfer the head to the Sainte- 
Chapelle. At this loss the Benedictines of the 
abbey of Saint-Denis felt so aggrieved that the 
head was divided and the lower jaw left at Saint- 
Denis. The transference was made on the Tues- 
day after Ascension Day, in the year 1306, with 
extraordinary pomp. 

At the outbreak of the Revolution the chasse 
was sent to the mint to be melted into bullion, its 
rich jewels were cashed. Notre-Dame in the 
course of time received the sacred relics. The 
Bibliotheque Nationale was accorded the celebrated 
antique cameo of the apotheosis of Auguste, and 
the bust of the emperor Titus in agate, which sur- 
mounted the staff of the precentor. This bust 
had been metamorphosed into a likeness of Saint- 
Louis, by reason of a certain inherent resemblance, 



THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE 309 

and thus, rejoices an old writer, the Roman em- 
peror assisted daily at the service of the Sainte- 
Chapelle, holding in one hand a little cross and 
in the other a crown of thorns. " Certes, Vem- 
pereiir Titus ne s'y attendoit pas! " The skull of 
Saint-Louis was never found. 

After the rites of consecration of a church the 
officiating priest traces on the walls or columns 
twelve crosses to be afterwards reproduced per- 
manently. To conserve the memory of the con- 
secration of the Sainte-Chapelle these crosses are 
carried by statues of the twelve apostles placed on 
consoles adjusted to the pillars. The fourth, fifth, 
and sixth statues on the north and the third, 
fourth, and fifth on the south side are originals. 
Executed in hard limestone, covered with orna- 
ments, painted and gilded in imitation of rich 
stuffs, set off by borderings of precious stones, 
these figures prove the strength of the sculptors 
of the Xlllth century and by their movement 
and animation and the eloquence of their draperies 
show a distinct awakening. 

The great rose window of Charles VIII fills 
the entire west wall of the chapel, and below it is 
an arcade with sculptures representing the mar- 
tyrdoms. 

The rose, done towards the end of the XVth 



310 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

century, has not the brilliancy nor vivacity of 
the other windows and suffers by comparison. 
In common with the masters of his epoch the 
unknown author sacrifices general effect to de- 
tail and instead of a vigorous mosaic he pro- 
duces a series of compositions which must be re- 
garded closely if all their delicacy is to be seized. 
He employs tertiary colours in charming shades 
which are dissipated by the passage of light 
through them. 

The seventy-nine subjects herein contained re- 
late to the Apocalypse, and are readily followed. 
The vision of Saint John is pictured with grace 
and charm which merits close examination in de- 
tail, for several of the pictures of which it is 
composed are little masterpieces of design and 
execution. 

There is no danger that the loiterer will miss 
seeing the grill set obliquely in the wall on 
the right-hand side of the upper chapel, built by 
Louis XI in order that he could hear mass and 
see the shrine without being exposed. No guide 
will permit this bit of history to be overlooked, 
nor the fact that below this little construction was 
a small oratory where Saint-Louis retired to hear 
the office recited in the lower chapel. 



THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE 311 

In the second bay on the left is a door which 
communicated with an external gallery. Noth- 
ing is left but a corridor to show for the three- 
story construction built by Montereau as an 
annex to the apse, which had the honour to 
house one of the first public hbraries of Europe. 
Geoffroy de Beaulieu, counsellor, aumonier, and 
confessor of Saint-Louis, recounts that when the 
prince was in Palestine he heard of a Saracen 
sultan who searched out and had translated at his 
own expense books of all kinds which could be 
useful to the savants of his country, collecting 
them in his li])rary where they could be consulted 
without difficulty. 

Saint-Louis with enthusiasm set about the estab- 
lishment of a similar library. He had copies 
made of the manuscripts of the different abl)eys, 
and placed them in a room contiguous to the 
chapel. AVhen the little collection was installed 
he placed it at the disposition of all those who 
wished to study, coming frequently himself, dur- 
ing his hours of leisure, to the library, where, find- 
ing sometimes beside him subjects whose educa- 
tion was inferior to his own, he translated for them 
from the Latin what they could not make out. 
The library occupied the upper story of this 



312 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

annex, the rooms below serving as sacristies. This 
annex was supi)ressed in 1776, after the fire, and 
was sacrificed to the extension of the Palais. 

The sculptures of the upper porch are restora- 
tions. The Last Judgment is the subject of the 
tympanum and the central pier of the door sup- 
ports the figure of Christ. The absorbingly inter- 
esting features of the porch are the lozenge reliefs 
to the right and left of the portal, which represent 
with a delicious naivete on one side, God the 
Father creating the world, the sun, the moon, 
light, planets, animals, man, etc., and, on the 
other, the story of Genesis, Cain and Abel, the 
Flood, the Ark, Noah's sacrifice, Noah's vine, etc. 

Immediately upon the outbreak of the Revolu- 
tion the Sainte-Chapelle was seized and made to 
serve as a club and later as a granary, then as a 
repository for the archives of the Palais. At this 
time the most unpardonable mutilations of the 
monument occurred when three metres of the 
windows were taken out in order to place the 
cases. 

Mutilated within and without, its painting and 
gilding worn off or obliterated or buried under 
mould, its sculpture broken, deprived of its spire, 
its gables, its pinnacles, balustrades, and steeples, 
the building was so far gone that it was long a 



THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE 313 

question of demolition. Louis XVIII and 
Charles X had wished vainly to restore the chapel 
of their ancestors, and finally, in 1837, in the 
reign of Louis-Philippe, the long contemplated 
reconstruction was begun. The work was first 
confided to Duban, then Lassus and Viollet-le-Duc 
were added. After the execution of the most press- 
ing work Lassus carried the work to completion. 

The Louvre retains a beautiful statue in terra 
cotta by Germain Pilon, made for the Sainte- 
Chapelle during the Renaissance. It is a seated 
Vh'gin, the head veiled, the hands crossed, in an 
attitude of prayer. It still bears traces of a 
coloui-ing that must have been in harmony with 
the chapel, though its style is of a so much later 
epoch. 



CHAPTER XV 
SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 

The beauties of Saint-Denis are not to be 
grasped in a single visit. A preliminary trip, to 
take the keen edge off curiosity, followed by 
leisurely promenades, armed with a permission 
from the Beaux-Arts, which enables a visitor to 
prowl about without the annoyance of a guide, ^.vill 
develop the amazing interest of the tombs. 

It is interesting to discriminate between the 
tombs built for the church, to cover the remains 
of royalties actuallj^ interred here, and that greater 
mass of recumbent figures, funeral stones, and 
monuments brought here from demolished churches 
after the disorders of the Revolution. 

The tombs have been arranged and rearranged 
many times, carried back and forth, mutilated and 
restored, until most of the sentiment concerning 
them has been lost and they seem to have little 
connection with the illustrious dead, so shamefully 
desecrated. The statues and monuments have now 
the air of exhibits in a museum. The Revolution, 
in permitting any of them to stand, after its first 



SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 315 

rage was appeased, expressly stipulated that it 
should be as works of art and not objects of pious 
veneration, and notwithstanding the regret of suc- 
ceeding generations for events which made this 
church the theatre of orgiastic revel and macabre 
festival, the spirit of the Revolutionary mandate 
has stood. 

Impressive and glorious as are the tombs, even 
in their present arrangement, the imagination 
needs the spur of much reading-up of the subject 
if one is to feel the true import of the royal 
sepulchre in the face of actualities so strongly 
antipathetic. Great labels are affixed to each 
quiet, medieval effigy, rendering useless but not 
silencing the rigmarole of the guide; they stand 
out boldly against the exquisite sculpture, and to 
add to the disillusionment are alternated with 
similar placards inviting the public to refrain from 
various disgusting practices; and these with the 
elaborate fencings-off to keep one at bay, the 
intrusive guards with their unique preoccupation 
— the lavish pourhoire — make a constant irritation 
which it is difficult to rise above. It is a thousand 
pities that it must be so. 

We must understand, of course, that what we 
see at Saint-Denis is only a part, though in truth 
the greater part, of the original marvellous coUec- 



316 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

tion of royal tombs, and that it has been greatly 
augmented by the numerous monuments brought 
here from the abbeys of Sainte-Genevieve, Saint- 
Germain-des-Pres, and Royaumont; from the con- 
vents of the Cordeliers, Jacobins, Celestins, and 
other religious orders, saved by the individual de- 
votion and energy of Alexandre Lenoir, a single 
private citizen, who removed them personally to 
the museum improvised in the convent of the 
Petits-Augustins for safe keeping during the 
Reign of Terror. 

The Revolution came down heavily upon Saint- 
Denis, as the sepulchre of that royalty which it 
had determined to extirpate. Much has been 
written of the orgies which accompanied the viola- 
tion of the royal tombs, of which not one was 
spared, every grave having been opened, every 
vault searched, every casket emptied, every body 
rifled. The thing was done with hellish thorough- 
ness, at first cursorily, for the mere pleasure of 
wanton destruction, then with diabolic system. 

During the seance of July 31, 1793, Barrere 
presented a report, in the name of the redoubtable 
" committee on public safety," recommending, in 
celebration of the anniversary of August 10, 1792, 
the day when the monarchy was overthrown, the 
annihilation of the " ostentatious mausoleums of 



SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 317 

Saint-Denis," whose beauty constituted " a form 
of flattery to royal pride." 

The report was sanctioned bj?- a decree of the 
National Convention, and the real fete appears to 
have been held, as ordered, on the anniversary of 
the storming of the Tuileries, when the cream of 
the statues and monuments was cleared out of 
the church, when the " powerful hand of the Re- 
public," to use Barrere's phrases, " effaced inex- 
orably the superb epitaphs and demolished the 
monuments which recalled the frightful souvenir 
of the kings." 

But time pressed and there was much similar 
work to be done, so it was not until after Lequinio 
addressed the national tribune, more than a month 
later, denouncing the failure to execute the decree 
which ordered the entire demolition of the tombs 
of " our tyrants at Saint-Denis," that the job was 
finished. In the meantime some protests against 
the vandalism must have reached the ears of the 
directors, for, continues Lequinio, " w ithout doubt 
in destroying these remains of despotism one 
should preserve the artistic monuments; but these, 
instead of being made objects of idolatry, must 
serve only to foster admiration and emulation of 
the genius of the artists." 

In October, 1793, the undertaking was put into 



318 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

the hands of a commttee of conscientious persons 
who spared neither time nor pains to search every 
grave and every vault, overlooking nothing, and 
leaving a careful report of their proceedings made 
by a no less competent person than dom Poirier, 
the former keeper of the archives of Saint-Denis, 
and one of the dignitaries of the abbey. This old 
Benedictine has left a cold, colourless account of 
the affair, but one that has all the value and au- 
thenticity of a report made by an eyewitness. 
The document has of course immense historic 
value. 

The work began on October 12, 1793, and occu- 
pied exactly a month, proceeding as we have said 
with much system. As gold crowns, jewels, orna- 
ments, or whatever were discovered they were 
turned over to swell the national treasury; lead 
and bronze coffins were melted into arms and 
ammunition for defence — the nation " being in 
peril " — while the bodies of the kings, queens, 
princes, and princesses — the " tyrans, frappcs 
jusque dans leurs tomheaux^' — were thrown into 
trenches of quicklime and destroyed to the last 
vestige. 

On the first day the vault of the Bourbons was 
opened, in one of the chapels of the crypt, and 
the first casket withdrawn was that of Henri IV. 



SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 319 

Dom Poirier notes the fact, adds the date of the 
king's death, May 16, 1610, and his age, 57 years, 
and then adds that the body was in excellent pres- 
ervation, his features perfectly recognizable, and 
that he was exposed to public view for two 
days, in the choir at the foot of the steps which 
lead up to the sanctuary. 

Lamartine has left a vivid picture of this gro- 
tesque fete during which the people raging upon 
the tombs seemed to exhume their own history and 
throw it to the winds. " The axe broke the bronze 
doors, the gift of Charlemagne to the basilica. 
Grills, roof, statues, all fell in debris under the 
hammer. They tore up the stones, violated the 
vaults, and broke open the caskets. A mocking 
curiosity scrutinized, under the shrouds and wrap- 
pings, the embalmed bodies, the dried flesh, the 
whitened bones, tlie empty skulls of kings, queens, 
princes, ministers, bishops, whose names had re- 
sounded in the past of France. Pepin, the founder 
of the Carlovingien dynasty and the father of 
Charlemagne, was nothing but a pinch of gray 
ashes which blew away in the wind. The mutilated 
heads of Turenne, Duguesclin, Louis XII, Fran- 
9ois I, rolled upon the paving of the partis. His- 
toric and religious emblems and attributes — 
sceptres, crowns, crosses, were trodden underfoot. 



320 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

An immense trench lined with quicklime to con- 
sume the cadavers was opened in one of the 
exterior cemeteries, called the cimitiere des Valois. 
Perfumes hurned in the subterranean passages to 
purify the air. After each blow of the axe were 
heard the acclamations of the grave diggers who, 
uncovering the remains of a king, played with his 
bones. . . ." 

" Henri IV, embalmed by the art of the Italians, 
conserved his historic physiognomy. His uncov- 
ered chest still showed the two wounds which cost 
him his life. His beard, perfumed and spread like 
a fan, as in his portraits, attested the care which 
this voluptuous king had for his person. His 
memory, dear to his people, protected him a mo- 
ment against profanation. During two days the 
crowd filed past this popular cadaver. Placed in 
the choir at the foot of the altar he received in 
death the respectful homage of these mutilators 
of royalty. Javogues, representing the people, 
was indignant at this posthumous superstition. 
He tried to show in a few words that this king, 
brave and amorous, had been rather the seducer 
than the servitor of his people. ' II a trompc,' said 
Javogues, ' T>ieu, ses maHrcsses, et son peuple; 
qu'il 7ie irompe pas la posterite et voire ^justice.' 



SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 321 

They threw the cadaver of Henri IV into the 
common trench." 

His son, Louis XIII, and his grandson, Louis 
XIV, followed. Louis XIII was nothing more 
than a mummy, Louis XIV an unrecognizable 
black mass of aromatics. Louis XV was the last 
drawn from the vault of the Bourbons. This, as 
it happened, was at eleven o'clock on the morning 
of ^Vednesday, 16 October, 1793, at the moment 
that Marie-Antoinette lost her head. Dom Poirier 
notes the coincidence and remarks that the coffin 
of Louis XV occupied the niche at the entrance of 
the vault where it was customary to deposit the 
body of the last king while awaiting the arrival 
of his successor, when he was carried to his proper 
resting place in the vault. 

Louis XV died of small-pox and had lain some- 
thing short of twenty years in the vault of the 
Bourbons. His casket was opened on the edge 
of the trench in the cemetery. " The infection of 
his reign seemed to come out of his sepulchre," 
says Lamartine, and he was quickly thrown into 
the trench and covered with quicklime and earth, 
while they burned powder and, says dom Poirier, 
fired a few shots from a gun to purify the air. 

Turenne's body, mutilated by shots, was ven- 



322 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

erated by the people. They stole it and it lay 
hidden for nine years at the Jardin des Plantes, 
amongst the remains of stuffed animals. Napo- 
leon gave him a military burial at the Invalides. 
But Duguesclin, Suger, Vendome, heroes, abbots, 
ministers of the monarchy, were precipitated pcle- 
mele into the common trench. 

The monuments in metal were almost all melted 
down, although they included the precious recum- 
bent statues of Charles le Chauve, the tomb of 
Marguerite de Provence, the mausoleum of Charles 
VIII, and the effigy of the sire de Barbazan, signed 
by Morant. 

What Lenoir had saved from the holocaust he 
carted with enormous difficulty into Paris. The 
monastery of the Petits-Augustins, which had been 
founded in 1609, hy IMarguerite de Valois, the 
first and divorced wife of Henri IV, was chosen 
by the Constitutional Assembly at the moment of 
the suppression of monastic orders and the sale 
of religious houses, as a place of deposit for monu- 
ments otherwise without shelter, whose preserva- 
tion might present an interesting study of art or 
history. 

A special committee was charged to designate 
what works of painting and sculpture should be 
gathered up, and Alexandre Lenoir, an artist full 



SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 323 

of zeal and devotion, who had pushed the measure 
through the Assembly, was commissioned to hunt 
up the monuments and to take charge of their 
transportation. As we know, he spared neither 
trouble nor fatigue, and several times risked his 
life for the menaced monuments. He received a 
bayonet stroke when he flung himself before the 
tomb of cardinal Richelieu (now at the Sorbonne) 
when the furious mob rushed upon it. 

The convent comprised within its enclosure a 
church, a cloister, two large courts, and an im- 
mense garden. The largest monuments and those 
of the more remote epochs were put in the church, 
and the others ranged according to their centuries 
were installed in a number of rooms decorated 
in the style of their period by means of frag- 
ments of architecture gathered up from the ruins 
of famous buildings, and contemporary stained 
glass. Chapels, sepulchres, columns, fountains, 
sarcophagi, containing the remains of illustrious 
personages stood about the garden, while entire 
fa9ades brought from Anet, from Gaillon, and 
other chateaux came to be adjusted on the sides 
of the principal court, where some are still to be 
seen. 

But large and commodious as was this monas- 
tery, it was much too small to display all the 



324 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

treasures poured into it, and a mass of debris was 
packed jDrovisionally in the cellars. 

The opening of this Musee National des Petits- 
Augustins was the "15 fructidor, An. III." 
The grandeur of the ensemble made a profound 
impression upon the public, people began to de- 
plore the ruin of so many treasures of antiquity, 
and soon the tide turned against the iconoclasts of 
1793. Lenoir's work served a double purpose and 
from it dates the revival of appreciation of the art 
of the Mo yen Age. 

More than twelve hundred objects in all passed 
through the collection; some made only a short 
stop in the museum and were quickly restored to 
their original places. After the restoration of the 
cult the sacred images were almost all reinstated 
in the churches from which they had been taken. 
All that we most admire to-day at Saint-Denis, 
in the Louvre, in the rooms of French sculpture 
at Versailles, in many churches, first found refuge 
at the Petits-Augustins. 

A royal ordonnance of December, 1816, ordered 
the closing of the museum and the restitution of 
the exhibits at the government's expense. Either 
by indifference or parsimony the churches did not 
hurry their claims and many of the old families 
of France, whose chateaux had been ruined. 



SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 325 

showed a similar negligence and failed to reclaim 
the tomhs of their ancestors. Thus mausoleums 
of kings and princes were transported to Saint- 
Denis together with a mass of unrelated material, 
while the court of the Beaux-Arts, which institu- 
tion succeeded the museum in the reign of Louis 
X'\^III, is still rich in historic souvenirs of this 
fateful time, precious fragments having been em- 
ployed in the decoration of the new buildings of 
the Ecole. 

Under Viollet-le-Duc the tombs of Saint-Denis 
were arranged somewhat after the plan of their 
original disposition. Nothing indigenous to the 
cathedral is earlier than the time of Louis IX, 
who had many of the statues of his predecessors 
made at the time that he rebuilt the church. The 
famous tomb of Dagobert, usually attributed to 
Suger, is now generally accepted as a century too 
late in workmanship to have been done under his 
direction. 

Of the authentic antiquities we have the tomb 
of Clovis, brought from the destroyed abbey of 
Sainte-Genevicve; it lies at present in the left 
transept, one looks down upon it as one mounts 
the steps to the ambulatory, and beside it lies the 
funeral stone of Childebert, from Saint-Germain- 
des-Pres, of whose dignity and character we have 



326 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

already spoken. The figure has a style and 
vivacity lacking in the heavier effigy of Clovis, 
and, holding in his right hand the apse of the 
church which he built, Childebert seems to point to 
it, with his sceptre, with a gesture full of regal 
authority. His draperies are well managed, so ar- 
ranged as to reveal his figure, the lines of which are 
indicated with masterly precision. 

The funeral stone of the intrepid Fredegonde, 
the most wicked of her race, also from Saint- 
Germain-des-Pres, occupies a sheltered position 
on the right-hand side of the sanctuary, an honour 
due to its great antiquitj^ and its value as a work 
of art. The longer one examines this beautiful 
relic the more possible does it seem that it does 
indeed date from the epoch of the queen herself, 
which would place it as early as the beginning of 
the Vllth century and make it older by some five 
centuries than the statue of Clovis, made in the 
Xllth century, and otherwise the dean of the 
collection. No description yet written has done 
justice to it, no drawing suggests its venerable 
mystery. The stone mosaic is exceedingly fine 
and hard, while the expressive outlines in gilded 
copper, the elaborate embellishments of the robe 
and the border of the stone, indicate an affinity 
with the antiquities of Persia. 




I'hutu J.. Giraudon 



DAGOBERT's tomb. SAINT-DENIS. 

TO THE RIGHT THE VII TH CENTURY STATUE OF 

THE VIRGIN FROM SAINT-MARTIN-DES-CHAMPS. 



SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 329 

The beautiful tomb of Dagobert, exiled upon its 
return to Saint-Denis to the porch of the nave, 
has been put back in its place of honour to the 
south of the high altar. Viollet-le-Duc has re- 
paired so far as was possible the vandalism of 
the architect of the restitution, and restored the 
tomb to its original form, that of an ogival chapel 
with a double face, graceful and elegant in shape 
and solidly constructed in sand-stone. When the 
monument was first brought back to Saint-Denis 
it was cut in two and its two faces set in opposing 
ends of the porch to balance one another as the 
tombs of Dagobert and his wife Nantilde. 

Dagobert died in the abbey of Saint-Denis, in 
638, and his body, carefully embalmed, was in- 
terred in the church. We know nothing of the 
manner of the first tomb which covered the re- 
mains. The present monument has been re- 
mounted upon the original sarcophagus in gray 
marble, decorated with sixteen fleurs-de-lys, upon 
which lies a modern effigy of the king, supported 
on the two sides by modern statues of Nantilde 
and one of the two princes, probably Clovis II. 

The tall, pointed bay above the recumbent 
figure is filled with lively sculpture based upon 
the vision of a hermit, called John, and consid- 
ered in the IXth century as a veritable revela- 



330 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

tion. The vision came to the hermit on the day 
of Dagobert's death. At this time John, sleep- 
ing in his hut, on the sea-coast, was approached 
in his dream by a man of imposing aspect — a 
bishop, some say Saint-Denis — who bade him rise 
quickly and pray for the soul of the king Dago- 
bert just dead. Scarcely had the hermit responded 
when he saw upon the sea the king maltreated 
by a group of demons who had tied him in a 
barque, and were conducting him to the cave of 
Vulcan. In the relief the soul of Dagobert is 
represented as a nude figure, wearing a crown. 
Dagobert in his distress invokes the assistance of 
Saint-Denis, Saint-Maurice, and Saint-^Iartin, 
whom he had particularly loved, and the three 
saints, in the midst of a mighty tempest, rush at 
once to rescue the soul of the king from the 
demons. 

The bay is divided into three panels. The first 
represents the hermit asleep in his cave with the 
bishop bending over him. An oak tree separates 
this picture from the rest, in which we see Dago- 
bert standing in the boat upon the waves, receiving 
a flogging from the hands of the devils, while 
others row and push and pull the boat towards 
Vulcan's cave. The second panel shows the 
demons frustrated while Dagobert is received bv 



SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 331 

the saints accompanied by angels with censers. 
In the third panel the three saints hold Dagobert 
upon a sheet by which they lift him to celestial 
spheres, while the hand of God appears through 
a cloud surrounded by angels. 

The sculpture is crisp and full of vivacity, and 
except for the three modern figures the monument 
is one of the handsomest of its epoch. 

Close by this tomb is the seated figure of the 
Virgin with the Christ upon her knees, from the 
church of Saint-Martin-des-Champs. The statue 
is in wood and we see traces of painting upon it. 
Its character is unusual and its antiquity con- 
vincing. Its epoch is unknown, but Lenoir, who 
saved it and who mentions it in the catalogue of 
his museum, thinks it may be as early as 600. 

Amongst the many recumbent figures that of 
the Countess ^larguerite d'Artois is considered a 
fine example of grace and elegance of the Moyen 
Age; " le XIV^ siecle n'a jamais He mieux inspire, 
et 71 a jajnais produit une plus ravissante statue 
de femme," was Guilhermy's verdict. The effigy 
lies side by side with that of Louis, comte d'Artois, 
son of Philippe le Hardi, buried in the church of 
the Jacobins in Paris, and the statues came to 
Saint-Denis by the usual route. 

That the two statues are not by the same hand 



332 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

is evident; there is a dulness about that of the 
count, as in many of these recumbent figures, 
made from memory or data after death. But the 
effigy of Marguerite has none of that perfunc- 
toriness; the sculptor has been moved by his sub- 
ject and presents the woman as she must have 
been in hfe, yet with all the mystery of death. 
Not only is the face, partially enveloped in its 
veils, an exquisite bit of modelling, not only is 
the charming form revealed with the most perfect 
art, though these are the essential points, her 
very clothes express the fineness and charm of this 
woman and the love which the sculptor put into 
his work. She rests in a simple pose, the hands 
joined as if in prayer. The chin is supported in 
a veil which, carried to the brim of the coif, falls 
a^ain in straight lines to her shoulders. The coif 
bears a discreet coronet and under this a few locks 
of hair soften the face. The robe is very plain 
across the chest but falls in ample folds about the 
feet; one cannot too much admire the art with 
which the sculptor has handled this sumptuous 
drapery. At her feet two sprightly little dogs 
play upon a tuft of oak leaves. 

The three great monuments of Saint-Denis are 
the Renaissance tombs of Louis XII and Anne 
de Bretagne, Francois I and Claude de France, 




RECUMBENT FIGURES OF LOUIS AND 
llARGUERITE D'ARTOIS. SAIXT-DEXIS, 
AFTER A PEX DRAWING. 



Phijto A. Guaudun 




Fliolu A. Gauiulo 



TOMB OF LOUIS XII AND ANNE DE BRETAGNE. 
BT JEAN JUSTE OF TOUKS. SAINT-DENIS. 



ETAIL FROM THE 
OMB OF FRANQOIS 1 
ND CLAUDE DE 
RANGE AT 
AINT-DENIS. 




Photo X 



SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 835 

and Henri II and Catherine de Medicis. With 
these three magnificent monuments, made for the 
cathedral, may be classed the tomb of the House 
of Orleans and the column of rran9ois II brought 
from the Church of the Celestins; the column of 
Henri III from Saint-Cloud; the urn made to 
contain the heart of Francois I, from the abbey 
of Hautes-Bruyeres, and the sumptuous effigies 
of Henri II and Catherine de Medicis by Germain 
Pilon, from the estate of the sculptor. 

In these monuments we may trace the birth of 
French Renaissance from its roots, in the art of 
Italy, until its ultimate fruition under Francois I 
and Henri II in the work of such a glorious group 
as the sculptors Jean Goujon, Germain Pilon, 
Pierre Bontemps and the celebrated architect, 
Philibert Delorme. 

Examining these monuments in chronological 
order the first to command attention is the elabo- 
rate and beautiful tomb erected by Louis XII, the 
son of Charles, due d'Orleans, to his grand- 
parents, Louis de France and Valentine de Milan, 
to his father, and to his uncle, Philippe comte de 
Vertus. In addition to its artistic importance this 
monument is of great historic value as immortaliz- 
ing the memory of the Orleans from whom were 
descended the great kings of the period of French 



336 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Renaissance, for from Louis XII onward we pass 
to a time of rich artistic development, shown as 
well in sculpture as in architecture, not only in 
Paris but better preserved in the chateaux of 
France. 

Louis IX was a builder, he has left us at least 
one great masterpiece — the Sainte-Chapelle. After 
him Charles V figures brilliantly as a builder of 
royal residences — it was he who erected the Hotel 
Saint-Pol, and it was he who first adopted the 
Louvre as a royal residence. Now Louis, due 
d'Orleans, was the second son of Charles V. He 
built the chateaux of Pierrefonds and la Ferte- 
^lilon. His history was full of incident and ended 
in tragedy. While his brother, Charles VI, occu- 
pied the throne of France, Louis, due d'Orleans, 
tachoit de desennuyer the queen, Isabeau de 
Raviere, in her house in the Marais, the Hotel 
Rarbette. 

On the evening of Novemlier 23, 1407, while 
Queen Isabeau, magnificently gowned and wear- 
ing a headdress en comes merveilleuses , liautes et 
longues enchasscs de jnerries, was dining inti- 
mately with her brother-in-law, a royal valet 
entered and announced that the king desired the 
duke to come to him at once as he wished to speak 
to him on matters of utmost importance. The 



SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 337 

queen was full of fears, but the duke sans chaperon 
apres avoir mis sa houppelande de da mas noir 
fourrc, hurried out, playing with his glove as he 
went, and mounted his mule, accompanied by two 
squires mounted on the same horse, a page, and 
three running footmen with torches. Raoul 
d'Octouville, former treasurer, who had been dis- 
missed from his post by the duke, was waiting in 
the shadow, accompanied by seventeen armed men, 
and instantly rushed upon him with cries of '" A 
7nort! a mort! " 

By the first blow of his axe Raoul d'Octouville 
cut off the hand with which the duke guided his 
mule, a second blow split his head. The duke cried 
vainly, " Je suis le due d'Orleaus " ; no help was 
proffered and he soon tottered and fell. One of 
his servants fell upon the prostrate body and was 
killed on the spot. As the death was accomplished 
a hooded figure emerged from the neighbouring 
Hotel Notre-Dame, and cried : " Extinguish your 
lights and escape." At the funeral of the duke 
the next day in his chapel at the Celestins the 
same figure was recognized; it was the due de 
Bourgogne, Louis's first cousin. 

The body of the due d'Orleans reposed, without 
a monument, under the altar of the chapel at the 
Celestins, which he had founded and richly en- 



338 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

dowcd, until his grandson, Louis XII, in 1504, 
erected the superb mausoleum, of which what we 
see at Saint-Denis is the reassemblage. This tomb 
stood in the centre of the Chapelle d'OrUans, sur- 
rounded by a number of other funeral monuments, 
forming in their ensemble one of the most precious 
museums of the world. These included the statue 
of the admiral Philippe de Chabot, by Jean 
Cousin; the group of the Three Graces (the urn 
which they support intended to contain the heart 
of Henri II), the work of Germain Pilon; the 
columns of Anne de Montmorency, of Fran9ois II, 
and of Timoleon de Brissac; the Longueville 
obelisk, chiselled with reliefs and surrounded by 
statues; the tomb of Rene d'Orleans, of which 
Saint-Denis treasures the fragments, and that of 
Henri, due de Rohan, sculptured by ^lichel 
Anguier. The dispersal of this sculpture and the 
destruction of the chapel which enclosed it were 
among the most wanton acts of vandalism of the 
past century. The whole was sacrificed to the 
"cutting through of the Boulevard Henri IV in 
1847-48. 

The convent of the Celestins was founded by 
Charles V, who laid the corner-stone in 1365. 
This stone is now at the Musee de Cluny. 
Charles V and his son loaded the foundation with 



SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 339 

riches, and after the abbey church of Saint-Denis 
none other in France was so rich in wonderful 
monuments to the illustrious dead. 

Of the identity of the sculptor who achieved the 
noble tomb of the House of Orleans, nothing is 
known. It antedates the tomb of Louis XII by 
about fifteen years, but since its style is even 
more advanced than that of the later monument 
it has been thought that Louis XII commissioned 
some able Italian sculptor to design and model it. 

The design is original and logical. Upon a 
large, square platform supported by short columns 
between which are niches with figures of apostles 
and martyrs, lie the effigies of the brothers, 
Charles and Philippe. Between these stands a sar- 
cophagus upon which lie the recumbent figures of 
the grandparents, Louis and Valentine. 

Charles, due d'Orleans, the father of Louis 
XII, was the poet who languished a prisoner at 
Windsor for twenty-five years after the battle 
of Agincourt. All four statues show the ablest 
of sculpture and much charm of historic detail; 
that of Charles, except for the hands, which are 
restored, is of unusual beauty and elegance. At 
his feet the little porcupine, cut with spirit and 
full of character, recalls the order founded by 
Charles d'Orleans, of which this little animal was 



340 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

the emblem. It figures frequently upon the monu- 
ments of his son Louis XII. 

The Orleans monument undoubtedly inspired a 
style of which the magnificent tomb of Louis XII 
and Anne de Bretagne was the development, and 
the still more sumptuous tombs of Fran9ois I and 
Henri II the arrival. It was Fran9ois I, the suc- 
cessor of Louis XII, who erected, at Saint-Denis, 
this handsome mausoleum to his father-in-law. 
(Francois I married Claude de France, daughter 
of Louis XII.) Its authorship, after much un- 
certainty, has been established and Jean Juste, of 
Tours, sculptor-in-ordinary to the king, is credited 
with the work, aided by his brother Antoine. 

These two sculptors, locally famous in the be- 
ginning of the Renaissance, worked for the car- 
dinal d'Amboise upon the sculptures of the 
chateau de Gaillon and have left, in the cathedral 
of Tours, a charming souvenir of their talent in 
the tomb of the children of Charles VIII and 
Anne de Bretagne. The little boy and girl lie 
side by side on a slab of black marble, and two 
pairs of small kneeling angels, at their heads and 
their feet, watch over them. The tomb is embossed 
with symbolic dolphins and exquisite arabesques. 

So little is definitely known of these early 
sculptors that one can only conjecture. The 



SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 341 

Justes are thought to have been of Florentine 
origin (Giusto) and the monument in the details 
of its sculpture shows strongly the influence of the 
Italian Renaissance, as well as reminiscences of 
the antique. Its architecture, however, shows the 
superiority of the French architecture of the 
period. 

The tomb is in the form of a sizable edifice, in 
the style of a temple, open on the four sides, and 
covered by a roof. Within the edifice is the 
sarcophagus, upon which lie the effigies of the 
king and queen, entirely nude; while upon the 
roof, or platform raised upon twelve arches, are 
kneeling statues of the pair in ceremonial robes. 
The twelve arches are divided by sixteen pilasters, 
the two faces entirely covered with arabesques of 
exquisite chiselling and worthy of thorough exam- 
ination. Amongst vases and horns of abundance, 
leafage, heads of angels, winged figures, griffons, 
serpents, swans, sphinxes, birds, bulls' heads, in- 
struments of music, arms and funereal attributes, 
one deciphers the monogram of Louis and Anne, 
the arms of France, and the salamander of 
Francois I. 

Under each of the twelve bays formed by the 
arcade is seated the statue of an apostle, very 
much restored from the mutilations of the Revo- 



342 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

lution; and at the angles sit the four cardinal vir- 
tues, readily recognized by their ordinary symbols. 

Between these figures the base of the monument 
is decorated with four bas-reliefs, the subjects 
drawn from the history of the wars of Louis XII 
in Italy, worked out with considerable fidelity to 
fact, and extremely beautiful in their surfaces, 
modelled with great fluency. One can see here 
influences, perfected in the reliefs upon the monu- 
ment to Henri II, which have spread to our own 
day. 

The arcade carries a platform, under which is 
the ceiling of the mortuary chamber, a ceiling in 
handsome caissons, ornamented each with a dif- 
ferent rose. This shelters the sarcophagus upon 
which lie the forms, rigid as in death, of Louis 
XII and his consort, Anne of Brittany, done with 
nmch realism. The king's face presents the pain- 
ful alterations characteristic of dead faces, the con- 
traction of the hps, the prominence of the bones, 
the dryness of the flesh. The queen, her head 
thrown back upon her pillow, keeps more grace 
and charm. 

The figures posed upon the top of the monu- 
ment kneel on cushions before prie-T)ieu. Each 
wears the ermine mantle of royalty and the two 



SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 343 

statues are considered to have been faithful por- 
traits. 

The tomb of Fran9ois I, which forms a more 
than worthy companion monument to that of 
Louis XII, stands on the opposite side of the 
cathedral, and of the three similar Renaissance 
tombs is the largest and most elaborate. Its 
architect was Philibert Delorme, the royal effigies 
have been attributed to Jean Goujon, the reliefs 
to Pierre Bontemps, and the other sculptural de- 
tails to Germain Pilon, Ambroise Perret, Jacques 
Chantrel, Pierre Bigoine, Bastien Galles, and 
Jean de Bourges. Thus the monument combines 
the work of the most illustrious group of sculptors 
of the French Renaissance, directed by the cele- 
brated architect of the Tuileries. 

The general disposition of the monument cor- 
responds to that of its prototype and its details 
are even richer and more splendid. The base is 
ornamented with a similar relief, in four panels, 
representing the military achievement of Fran9ois 
I, including the campaign of Marignan in twenty- 
one reliefs, the triumphal entry of Francois into 
Milan, the Battle of Cerisoles with the events 
which preceded it and those which followed. 
These panels in verj' low relief, containing a mul- 



344 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

titude of figures, are extraordinary' in their elo- 
quent flatness. They have the quahty of paintings. 

A vaulted chamber, the ceiling in caissons, 
rounded, like a canopy, occupies the principal 
part of the monument, and contains the two 
sarcophagi, upon which, side by side, lie the nude 
figures of the king and his consort. The XVIth 
century has produced no more noble sculpture than 
these impressive, naturalistic figures, worthy in- 
deed of their supposed author, Jean Goujon. 
Francois I is represented in all the majesty of 
death, the head nobly conceived, the body modelled 
with great distinction and elegance. Beside him 
the sculptor has carved a more tender, subtle 
figure of Claude de France, who died in the flower 
of her youth (at twenty-five years, in 1524). 

Five figures, kneeling upon the platform which 
covers the tomb, represent the king and queen in 
ceremonial robes, the dauphin Fran9ois, Charles, 
due d'Orleans, and Charlotte de France, who died 
at eight years. The king and queen kneel before 
prie-Dieu ornamented with their initials, F and C, 
under crowns. The dauphin and the due d'Orleans 
are the work of Pierre Bontemps. 

Immediately behind this monument stands the 
magnificent marble urn brought here after the 
Revolution and made for the abbey of Hautes- 



SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 345 

Bruyeres, by Pierre Bontemps. Francois I died 
at the chateau of Rambouillet and, according to 
the custom, his heart and intestines were taken to 
the abbey of Hautes-Bruyeres, which is near Ram- 
bouillet, the intestines buried and the heart placed 
in a chasse, upon a column of alabaster. The vase 
with its pedestal was saved by Alexandre Lenoir, 
and is considered one of the most remarkable 
works of renaissance sculpture. 

The tomb of Henri II and Catherine de Medicis, 
which to the writer has always appealed as the 
ripest and richest of the Renaissance tombs under 
consideration, is the work of one hand. Germain 
Pilon designed it and directed its execution, him- 
self making the most important parts. 

The tomb was designed to stand isolated in a 
chapel of its own constructed by Philibert De- 
lorme under the direction of Catherine de Medicis. 
It was removed to the north transept of the 
cathedral in 1719, when the chapelle des Valois 
was destroyed. 

Following the type of the Louis XII tomb, the 
monument contains kneeling figures of the king 
and queen upon its roof, while underneath the 
nude forms of the same lie upon their shrouds 
in attitudes of sleep rather than death. By the 
time that this statue was made every trace of 



346 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Gothic feeling had died out. In the effigy of 
Louis XII, full of the horror of death, we feel 
still something of the Gothic spirit which dwelt 
upon the ugly facts, the punishments, and supersti- 
tions of the faith. But with the accomplishment 
of the Renaissance all was beauty, and Germain 
Pilon, who was the most suave of the sculptors of 
his epoch, has robbed death of all sting. 

The king is modelled with extraordinary skill 
and grace. The figure sleeps peacefully upon the 
bed of death free from all trace of suffering or 
terror, the head thrown back upon the cushion 
which supports it, in an attitude full of charm and 
nobility. The young queen, in a pose almost 
voluptuous, slumbers beside him. Pilon represents 
her as she was when Henri II was killed, though 
she survived him thirty years. This is one of the 
loveliest nudes in existence. What is so surprising 
and so admirable in these two figures especially, 
though it is scarcely less true of the nudes upon 
the other two tombs, is the dignity of these un- 
draped figures; though deprived of every insignia 
of royalty, they are none the less essentially ma- 
jestic and regal. 

Catherine, like her successor and kinswoman, 
Marie de Medicis, knew how to direct an artist 
and was keenly alive to the importance of leaving 




Photo A. Giraudon 



RECLINING STATUES OF HENRI II AND CATHERINE DE MEDICIS. 

BY GERMAIN PH-ON. 

FROM THEIB TOMB AT SAINT-DENIS. 



THE XJEN MADE TO CONTAIN THE HEAKT OP 

FBANgoiS I. 

FROM THE ABBEY OF HAUTESBRUYERES. 

BY PIERRE BONTEMPS. 

NOW AT SAINT-DENIS. 




Photo X 




Photo A. Oiraudon 



RECUMBENT FIGURES OF HENRI II AND CATHERINE DE MEDICIS. 
BY GERMAIN PILON. IN TUE CATHEDRAL OF SAINl DENIS 



DETAILS FROM THE TOMB OF 

HENRI IX AND CATHERINE DE MEDICIS 

AT SAINT-DENIS. 

FROM CAST IN THE TROCADERO. 




Photo A. Oiraudon 



SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 349 

behind her, as she wished her name to hve, works 
of art and architecture whose superiority alone 
would make them, and her as the subject, im- 
mortal. How wise they were, these daughters 
of the Florentine merchant princes. Marie de 
Medicis insured the immortality of her name 
through the Rubens paintings of her life. Cath- 
erine no doubt thought to create, in the Chapelle 
des Valois, with this tomb and incidentally herself 
as the central interest, a marvel which would com- 
pare with the famous tomb of her ancestors at 
San Lorenzo. 

Though frustrated of her full desire, Catherine 
would live through the beauty of this figure of 
Pilon's alone, and in this sumptuous tomb, and the 
magnificent chapel designed to contain it, we 
feel the pride of race, the projection of an ego 
centuries beyond tlie grave. 

The crypt of Saint-Denis has suffered many 
modifications. Originally it consisted of a central 
part (corresponding to the sanctuary of the upper 
church), of an ambulatory, and seven chapels. In 
it are still two columns of pink marble with white 
marble capitals, cut after the antique traditions, 
which date from the church of Charlemagne, if 
not from that of Dagobert. 

The central part, now altogether walled up and 



350 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

inaccessible to the public, was the sepulchre of the 
three holy martyrs and contained the relics of the 
abbey. As a sanctuary it seems to have been 
abandoned at an early epoch, and since the XVIth 
century no religious ceremonies have been held 
there. In the XVIIth century it became the 
Royal Vault. 

Previous to Henri IV the kings and queens 
and others buried at Saint-Denis reposed in the 
sarcophagi which constituted their tombs. Henri 
II, Catherine, and their three sons, Francois II, 
Charles IX, and Henri III were laid in the 
Chapelle des Valois. On the day of the inter- 
ment of a sovereign it was customary to place the 
body of the deceased king provisionally in the 
ceremonial vault, under the south transept, and 
here it lay, in state, upon a grill before a marble 
statue of the Virgin, for one year, during which 
the permanent resting place, chosen by the de- 
ceased, was prepared. At the end of the year the 
body was carried to its final tomb. 

Henri IV was the first king of the House of 
Bourbon; he began a new line. When he died 
his body was put in the usual place in the cere- 
monial vault, but as he himself had chosen no 
sepulchre and Marie de Medicis took no action 
in the matter and he could not be laid in the 



SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 351 

Chapelle des Valois, since it belonged to another 
branch of royalty, his body was allowed to remain 
in the receiving vault, and as his descendants died 
it became the custom to place their caskets there. 

This tomb, however, was small, so upon the 
death of JNIarie-Therese, Louis XIV ordered an 
enlargement. This enlargement consisted merely 
of opening a narrow passage between the cere- 
monial chamber and the old sanctuary of the 
crypt. Marie-Therese died on July 30, 1683, and 
the new sepulchre was blessed on the last day of 
the following month, and was thereafter known 
as the Royal Vault. 

The access to the Royal Vault was by a stone 
stairway, under the transept, which communi- 
cated with the ceremonial vault from which the 
new chamber was reached by means of a long, 
narrow, and crooked passage. As soon as the 
new vault was ready all the caskets of the Bour- 
bons were transferred to it except that of Louis 
XIII, the last king dead, who was left on the 
last step of the stairway, where he was to wait 
until the next king should take his place. This, 
then, became the custom, and was followed in the 
burials of Louis XIV and Louis XV. This last 
monarch was still in his place upon the steps when 
the Revolution broke. 



352 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

The hasty rage of the Revolutionists could not 
brook the inconvenience of the ordinary entrance 
to the Royal Vault when it came to carrying out 
the bodies of the despised monarchs. In order to 
facilitate and expedite matters the authorities 
broke into the wall of the larger vault, from the 
other end, between the two columns opposite the 
end chapel of the crypt. This accounts for the 
fact, already noted, that Henri IV was the first 
king taken out and Louis XV the last. 

Napoleon repaired the Bourbon vault for the 
reception of the imperial family, making the en- 
trance where the violators of 1793 had effected 
their entry. When the Bourbons regained the 
throne this opening, through which had passed 
in violence all their illustrious ancestors, was 
walled up and the entrance restored as originally 
in the south transept, through the ceremonial 
vault. 

The opening still exists, covered by three stones, 
under which the stone stairway leads down, com- 
posed of fourteen steps. At the foot of the steps, 
on the right, reposes, upon a heavy iron grill, the 
body of Louis XVIII, the last king interred in 
Saint-Denis. An old account describes the casket, 
covered with a black velvet cloth, bearing a silver 
cross, while above a vase of copper holds the 



SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 353 

entrails. Thus Louis XVIII awaits upon the steps 
of the eeremonial chamber a successor who never 
re2)hice(l him. 

Rich still in tombs, Saint-Denis contains only a 
pitiful handful of royal remains, walled up in the 
Royal Vault. Two caskets enclose what was 
thought to be the remains of Louis XVI and 
JNIarie-Antoinette, gathered up from the Cimi- 
ticre de la Madeleine, where their mutilated 
corpses were thrown into a deep trench between 
beds of (}uicklime. Opposite them in other coffins, 
rest Victoire and Adelaide de France, the two 
princesses who died in exile, and Charles-Ferdinand 
dArtois, due de Berry, who fell under the sword. 
Beside their murdered father in two tiny coffins, 
like cradles, lie two poor children who lived only a 
few liours. One of them. Mademoiselle d'Artois, 
was destined to become a princess. 

The last of the Bourbons, Charles X and his 
son, died in exile and were buried on foreign soil. 
Louis-Philippe and the two Napoleons were not 
more fortunate. 

At the back of the Royal Vault is a little stone 
ar moire supported on two antique colonnettes. 
This contains some supposed remnants of the 
bodies of Henri IV and Marie de Medicis and 
of Louis XIV; two hearts from the old Jesuit 



354 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

church of Saint-Louis, in the JNIarais, considered 
to be those of Louis XIII and Louis XIV, and 
some unidentified bones. These remains, enclosed 
in enamelled lead boxes, were deposited in July, 
1846. Some bones, found in 1817, in the trenches 
of the Cour de Valois, where the Revolutionists 
threw the despoiled corpses of their kings, have 
been added to them. 



CHAPTER XVI 
RENAISSANCE: FRANCOIS I 

Gothic art had scarcely reached its zenith 
when, exhausted, as it were, by its great flower- 
ing, it began to cast an eye upon Italy, where the 
Renaissance had been in progress for a century, 
and to submit itself in part to this warm, ex- 
pansive influence. 

There was undoubtedly more than the exhaus- 
tion of the Gothic theme to account for the 
change which came gradually over the face of 
things. The religious movement of which Gothic 
art was born had also, with Saint-Louis and the 
glorious enshrinement of the relics of the Pas- 
sion, reached its climax and a decline was slowly 
setting in. Little by little the love of ideal 
beauty, which the austerity of the early Chris- 
tians had banished as pagan in feeling, was creep- 
ing back with the riches and luxuries of the court, 
of the ecclesiastics, and of the church itself. 

We have only to compare the bald simplicity 
of the Gothic statues of Saint-Denis, affixed to 
the portails of Notre-Dame and of the saint's 



356 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

cathedral, the spirituality of the various paintings 
of the bishop of the XVth century, with that 
smooth prelate from Sarazin's chisel, from the 
royal abbey of Montmartre, to see how tastes in 
martyrs had changed with the lapse of centuries. 

Gothic sculpture was kept strictly to its mis- 
sion — to its mission architectural as well as 
spiritual. Essentially monumental in character, 
these Madonnas, Christs, Saints, and Apostles, 
with their unworldly expression, their simple yet 
significant gestures, their naif symbols, are as 
marvellously adapted to the architecture of which 
they are a part as to the understanding of the 
unlettered public who read in them all the essen- 
tials of the Holy Writ. Clinging close to the 
constructive line the angels and devices of the 
voussoirs and consoles, niches and stylobates, seem, 
even when most elaborate and fantastic, but the 
natural flowering of the forms they ornament but 
whose contour they never disturb. 

The sculptors of the " Death of the Virgin," 
in the apse of Notre-Dame, of the figures on 
the fa9ade of Chartres, of the " Beau Dieu " of 
Amiens knew none but arbitrary limitations to 
their genius and could have advanced to the most 
transcendent forms of ideal beauty and even to 
the frankest study of the nude, had that been 




Photo A. Qiraudon 



FKANCOIS I A CHEVAL. 
BY FRANCOIS CLOUET, 
tOUVRE. 




FRANgOIS I. 

BY JEAN NET CLOUET 



Photo A. Giraudon 



FRANCOIS 
LOUVRE. 



UKONZE BUST. ANONYMOUS. 



RENAISSANCE: FRANCOIS I 359 

the purpose of their time; but, says the Marquis 
de Laborde, " the desire then was for typical 
forms of searching truth, suffering and mystic in 
aspect, chid with the conventual shyness that was 
the fashion of the time," 

Standing, in point of time, between the opu- 
lent works of the antique and the voluptuous 
beauty of the Renaissance, these archaic figures 
draw apart, unrelated to either, and are not 
readily understood by those who approach them 
from any other than a direct standpoint. One 
must lose one's self in contemplating them before 
they will begin to speak; then the fascination of 
their simplicity, the pure directness of their mes- 
sage, unclouded by any sophistry, seems to carry 
them beyond the achievement of any other age. 

As the French Renaissance, in its debut, cast 
many a regretful look behind, hesitated to cast of¥ 
the worn Gothic raiment until sure of a worthy 
garment to replace it, so do we part with re- 
luctance from so sweet a tradition. One thinks 
of such quiet cities as Rouen, Amiens, Beauvais, 
Chartres, Le Mans, Auxerre, Autun, Bourges, 
and the immortal Rheims as presided over each 
by its great Gothic flower. One seems to see 
them, with that inward eye, standing stalwart, 
though venerable, reaching their spires, their 



360 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

towers, heavenward with a determination to lift 
humanity by the sheer force of architectural im- 
pulse to supramundane thoughts and lives. 
Their vastness, from the distant approach, is 
overwhelming; whole towns are swallowed in 
their shadows, the landscape itself is dwarfed by 
the magnitude of their proportions. The sun 
seems to shine but to throw into relief the thrill- 
ing passages of these cathedrals, so indigenous to 
the soil, so truly born of the great movement of 
Christianity across the heart of France. Not 
again in our loiterings shall we encounter such 
pure epics in stone. 

As the Gothic movement found its expression 
in churches and in spiritual revelations, so the 
Renaissance displayed its charms in civil archi- 
tecture; as Gothic architecture and sculpture 
glorified God, so Renaissance art and architecture 
glorified man; and so leaving the great cathedrals 
of France we must turn now to the famous 
chateaux and palaces, for the ego is developing 
rapidly and temporal things are the order of the 
day. 

It was at about the end of the XVth century 
and at the beginning of the XVIth century that 
Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francois I, aware 
and envious of what was being done in Italy, 



RENAISSANCE: FRANCOIS I 361 

attracted to their courts certain distinguished 
architects from Lombardy and Florence; while 
at the same time French art came rapidly under 
the influence of the Renaissance. 

At first the transition, working tentatively, was 
quite obvious; French architecture merely bor- 
rowed something from the Italians, while holding 
to the native construction and disposition of the 
ensemble, producing in the XVIth century a 
style full of character and peculiar to France. 
The form of the old French chateau was retained 
long after its round towers, built for defence, had 
ceased to function, while the Gothic survived in 
the general details of decoration. But little by 
little the round towers gave way to square pa- 
vilions and every decorative element even re- 
motely derived from the ogival family disap- 
peared. 

Though entered upon the path of imitation 
the French architect knew how to keep an orig- 
inal face, which was the more meritorious since 
the Italian colony installed at Fontainebleau ex- 
ercised a considerable influence; and at this junc- 
ture France produced some valiant architects such 
as Pierre Lescot, Jean Bullant, and Philibert 
Delorme, who built the more renowned portions 
of the Louvre and the Tuileries, and whose 



362 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

genius was sufficient to counterbalance the Italian 
influences which appear in their work. 

So handsome are the works of this epoch that 
the mind is diverted from the dangers of the 
classic revival, which two centuries later was to 
inflict even Paris with those slavish imitations of 
Greek and Roman temples adapted to all sorts of 
irrelevant buildings. For the moment the transi- 
tion produced that " fine and delicate marvel of 
French art," the church of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, 
built between 1517 and 1626, which has been 
well described as a Gothic church disguised in 
the trappings of classical details. " Uart rell- 
gieux vient r?iourir dans Saint-Etienne-du-Mont/' 
said Henri Martin, and if this be true its last 
moments are of a transcendent loveliness. 

The west facade of the court of the Louvre 
is considered one of the finest bits of Renaissance 
of the period of Fran9ois I, and in the Luxem- 
bourg Palace, built by Marie de Medicis, at the 
height of the movement, we see with how little 
slavery to his model — the Pitti Palace — Salomon 
de Brosses, the architect of the dowager queen, 
adapted its general physiognomy while subordi- 
nating it to the current French traditions and the 
demands of the French climate. 

We have already seen, at Saint-Denis, the 



RENAISSANCE: FRANCOIS I 363 

Italian influence as well as the Italian hand itself 
at work upon the beautiful Renaissance tombs. 
The sculpture of this period in France, like the 
civil architecture, had an original and charming 
character. Jean Goujon, Germain Pilon, Pierre 
Bontemps, Barthelemy Prieur, Jean Cousin, in 
submitting to the influence of the antique, kept 
nevertheless to a quality fundamentally French. 
In painting, however, the Italian tradition was 
disastrous to that delicate French art which had 
scarcely begun to bloom in the revealing portraits 
of Jean and Jehannet Clouet and Jean Fouquet. 
Primaticcio and Rosso, established at Fontaine- 
bleau, discredited completely these old masters of 
the XVth century, and though the XVIIIth cen- 
tury gave France some independent talents — 
Watteau, Chardin, Greuze, La Tour — the style 
which these two autocratic Italians imposed lay 
heavy upon native painters, and they dragged along 
in imitation and pastiche until the birth of the 
Romantic school delivered them from the Italian 
tradition. 

To feel the full swmg of the movement there 
is nothing more exhilarating than to take, at this 
juncture, the famous tour of the chateaux of the 
Loire, for while Paris itself is not particularly 
convincing upon the subject of the Renaissance, 



364 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

to visit Touraine is to get at the very heart of 
the matter, to see the Renaissance draw its first 
breath at Chambord and rise to its finest heights 
at Rlois or Chenonceau; to dig back into its 
ancestry at Plessis, to witness its conception at 
Amboise, to be carried to its purest expression 
at Azay-le-Rideau, to bathe one's self, in fine, in 
all the richness of French history, to take in once 
and for all that fact so freely overlooked by the 
casual tourist that though France may be Paris, 
Paris is not France. 

In these mediaeval strongholds we see strange 
metamorphoses — feudal castles changing into 
pleasure palaces for kings' mistresses; dungeons, 
keeps, moats standing as mute souvenirs of dra- 
matic intensity, or, " renovated in the renaissance 
style," mocking at former horrors; great round 
towers attached from mere force of habit to build- 
ings erected after the days of defence, to buildings 
which proclaim their peaceful character in multi- 
tudinous embroideries and cupolas. 

All the pleasures, the griefs, the vanities, the 
sorrows, the jealousies, the wickedness, the follies, 
the ignominies of all the French princes from Louis 
XI to Henry V are enacted here. Here kings 
were born and died; here queens passed painful 
periods of mourning or dreary months of banish- 



RENAISSANCE: FRANCOIS I 365 

ment; here, at Amboise, Francois I passed much 
of his hectic youth, with his ambitious mother, 
waiting for the throne of France, while Anne of 
Brittany in the royal chateau, but a few miles 
distant, tried desperately to give Louis XII an 
heir. The history of the chateau of Blois in the 
XVIth century is to a great extent the history of 
the whole of France. Chenonceau, Henri II's 
princely gift to Diane de Poitiers, is eloquent of 
the struggle for supremacy between the king's 
favourite and the queen. Catherine triumphs in 
the end, snatching the chateau from her rival upon 
the death of the sovereign, completing, with 
strange indifference to sentiment, constructions 
conceived by Diane, and stamping the royal mono- 
gram over the slender device of the favourite as 
though to take to herself by brutal force all 
memory of her lord's romantic passion. 

The chateau of Chambord is one of the most 
curious products of the epoch of reluctant detach- 
ment from the purely French form. The archi- 
tect, who was said to be Primaticcio, but who 
is now thought to have been a French master of 
distinction, if obscurity, tried to fuse together in 
this edifice the fortified castle of the Moyen Age 
with the pleasure palace of the Renaissance. In 
the result there is nothing Italian, either in 



366 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

thought or form. The exterior of this splendid 
dwelling presents to the bewildered eye a multi- 
tude of conical summits, terminating in lanthorns, 
rising on prodigious round towers, of dormer 
windows in stone, of belfries, of immense chim- 
neys richly sculptured and incrusted with slates, 
a forest of points, the last pinnacle tipped with 
a huge stone fleur-de-lys — the only one that es- 
caped the Revolution — and the salamander of 
Fran9ois I the otherwise constant motive. 

With all its fabulous extravagance of extrava- 
gance, so closely does it cling to the type of the 
old French chateau that one takes it to be the 
nearest thing, from many points of view, to that 
old historic Louvre, of which we read so much, 
and whose foundations, still partly buried under 
the west wing, are traced upon the paving of the 
inner court. 

As at Chambord the castle is in the form of a 
larger structure enclosing a smaller one, so the 
old Louvre formed a large square about a court 
in whose middle rose a big tower which served as 
dungeon to the chateau. As at Chambord the 
great central tower of the court seems to fling 
its shadow over the whole place, so we read that 
rran9ois I began his reconstruction of the old 
Louvre by the demolition of the grosse tour of 



RENAISSANCE: FRANCOIS I 867 

Philippe Auguste, because it made the palace 
dark and gave it the look of a prison. There is 
no doubt that one gets one's bearings best by 
seeing first Chambord and the older chateaux of 
the Loire. 

With these in mind the plan traced upon the 
court of the Louvre becomes perfectly explicit. 
These lines, done in white marble and in gres, 
outline with exact accuracy the foundations of 
the fortress of Philippe Auguste, with its towers, 
its quadrangle, and all its interior arrangement 
laid bare in 1866, by the excavations undertaken 
by the municipality. During several months, at 
this time, Paris could see this exhumation of an 
epoch so remote, and read in the half-opened 
earth one of the most curious pages of its history. 
About one thousand cubic metres of this sub- 
structure were uncovered. 

The Louvre, as we see it to-day, comprises a 
vast agglomeration of more or less related archi- 
tecture of which the earliest portions date from 
Fran9ois I and the latest touches from the first 
years of the Third Republic. 

Everything previous to the actual construction 
undertaken under Fran9ois I had been legendary 
until the excavations of 1866, which clearly dis- 
closed the Louvre of Philippe Auguste. But 



368 A LOITERER IX PARIS 

Philippe Auguste himself was but a rebuilder and 
tradition carries the ancient palace of this site 
back to remotest times, possibly to Childebert, 
certainly to Louis le Gros. Whether it was a 
royal hunting-lodge, situated in the wood bor- 
dering the Seine, or whether it was a fort com- 
manding the river, we do not know, but that it 
had towers, or at any rate a tower, is fairly cer- 
tain from the fact that writers of the time of 
Philippe Auguste speak always of his big tower, 
built in 1204, as the tour neuve, the new tower, 
which seems to indicate the existence of other 
towers of more ancient construction. 

The Louvre of Philippe Auguste would have 
been a somewhat newer building than the apse 
of Notre-Dame, and a few years earlier than the 
fa9ade of the great cathedral. It was built as 
part of the wall of Paris, constructed by Philippe 
Auguste, of which there remain many traces, and 
constituting the principal work of fortification, 
became a sort of citadel. 

The old chateau, as one can plainly see by 
examining the outlines of the foundations, formed 
a square about one-fourth the size of the actual 
court, its middle well taken up by the huge round 
tower of the dungeon. Amongst the celebrated 
guests of this tower were Ferrand, comte de 



RENAISSANCE: FRANCOIS I 369 

Flandre, whom Philippe Auguste imprisoned 
here, in 1214, after the victory of Bouvines; 
Enguerrand de Coucy; Guy and Louis de 
Flandre in 1299 and 1322; Enguerrand de Ma- 
rigny; Jean IV, due de Bretagne; Charles II, 
king of Navarre; le captal de Buch, Jean de 
Grailly; and Jean II, due d'Alen^on. 

From this great tower (after the imprisonment 
of the comte de Flandre sometimes called the 
tour F errand, from its dominating quality often 
called the tour de Paris) all the great fiefs of 
France had their source. When the vassals came 
to take or to renew the feudal oath, it was there 
that the ceremony took place. In the Salle des 
Cariatides, buried in the wall, is a fragment of 
the old fortress, and to the left of the window 
concealed by a door, is a spiral stairway of the 
original building. 

We know vaguely of a room in the left wing, 
long known as the Chamhre de Saint-Louis, but 
Saint-Louis resided in the Palais, and it was not 
until the reign of Henri II that the Louvre be- 
came the actual residence of royalty. Charles V 
was the first to attempt serious occupancy and 
when he built the third wall of Paris he enclosed 
the palace within the new limits of the city. He 
enlarged and embellished the Louvre and in- 



370 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

stalled in one of the towers his library of nine 
hundred books, and added gardens to the chateau, 
which, though small, were the admiration of con- 
temporary writers. 

But Charles V did not confine his interest to 
the Louvre; he built also the Hotel Saint-Pol, 
which became the royal residence until Charles 
VII abandoned it for the neighbouring Hotel des 
Tournelles, the official residence of Louis XI, 
Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francois I, when 
these kings had occasion to be in Paris. But the 
Tournelles is never spoken of with enthusiasm, 
Francois I did not think it fit to receive his rival, 
Charles- Quint, when a ceremonial visit from the 
emperor was impending, and this was his reason 
for deciding to patch up the old Louvre for the 
occasion and to make it the royal palace. His 
mother, Louise de Savoie, found it unhealthy on 
account of the marshes of the Marais, and obtained 
the Tuileries from her son with the neighbouring 
villa of Nicolas de Neufville, secretary of the 
finances. Finally, when Henri II was wounded in 
a joust, near this palace, and died in the Tournelles, 
Catherine de Medicis, his wife, conceived a super- 
stitious horror of the place and had it pulled down, 
establishing herself and her children at the Louvre 
and commencing at once her dowager palace, the 



RENAISSANCE: FRANCOIS I 371 

Tuileries, upon an extension of the villa of Louise 
de Savoie, whose domain she had greatly enlarged. 

The great movement which resulted in the 
palace of the Louvre, once under way, moved 
rapidly and it is difficult not to anticipate one's 
story. We must go back now to Louis XII, 
that good and simple sovereign, whose tomb we 
have seen at Saint-Denis, and upon which we may 
read so much of the history of France and of 
the wars with Italy, which, futile and extravagant 
as they had been from the political point of view, 
had fostered in the French a keen appreciation 
of the marvels of the Renaissance. 

Upon this tomb Louis XII is represented in 
the company of his second wife, Anne de Bre- 
tagne, the widow of his predecessor, Charles VIII, 
whom he espoused in order to continue the union 
of France and Brittany. Anne de Bretagne was 
his chief companion, his other marriages having 
been but brief. His first wife was Joan, second 
daughter of Louis XI, for whom he never cared, 
and when he became king he persuaded Alexander 
VI to grant him the dispensation for a divorce. In 
acknowledgment of this favour he presented to the 
pope's son, Cjtsar Borgia, the Duchy of Valentinois. 
His third wife was the beautiful young girl, Mary 
of England, sister of Henry VIII, whose affections 



372 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

were already engaged by Charles Brandon, Duke 
of Suffolk, but who was forced into this union by 
her brother. But Anne de Bretagne was the domi- 
nating factor of Louis's wedded life and she seems 
to have ruled him with an iron hand. 

Under Louis XII much rivalry existed between 
the two most prominent young princes of the day, 
Francois d'Angouleme, heir-presumptive to the 
throne of France, and Charles of Luxembourg, 
who afterwards became the celebrated Charles V 
or Charles-Quint, king of Spain and emperor of 
Germany. Louis had only daughters, and his 
eldest child, Claude de France, was affianced first 
to Charles-Quint by her mother and married to 
Fran9ois only after the death of that tyrannical 
lady. 

Anne de Bretagne opposed this most logical 
and inevitable marriage with all the force of her 
dominating character. History records her bit- 
ter jealousy against Louise de Savoie and her 
brilliant son. She kept them hidden at Amboise, 
where, however, the duchesse d'Angouleme con- 
trived to hold a rival court and to surround her 
son, whom she idolized, with every social advan- 
tage — and disadvantage. When Anne was too 
furious she exiled them to the simple Maison 
d'Angouleme, at Cognac, where Francois was 



RENAISSANCE: FRANCOIS I 373 

born; but wherever they were Anne hated her 
rival with a superstitious hatred, and felt her 
presence, like a bad fairy, at each confinement, 
when the queen was delivered of a stillborn. 

On the other hand, Louise's thoughts for the 
queen were no more friendly and she waited in 
silence but with murderous wishes, as long as 
Anne de Bretagne lived, to achieve the ambitions 
of her life. These ambitions were placed in her 
son; she loved him, say the chronicles, like a fils 
de Vaviour and many thought indeed that so god- 
like a creature could not have been the fruit of 
her union with her mediocre husband. 

The marriage between Claude de France and 
Francois was ardently desired by the people, but 
Louis dared not go against the wishes of his 
queen, and she taking advantage of a moment of 
weakness obtained his consent to the betrothal of 
their daughter to Charles-Quint, making a dis- 
graceful marriage contract by which Milan, Brit- 
tany, and Burgundy were to be given up as 
Claude's marriage portion. This meant the aliena- 
tion of half the kingdom of France and Louis 
could not have consented had he been in posses- 
sion of his faculties. Fortunately the king recov- 
ered and the States-General, assembling at Tours, 
besought him to revoke the rash engagement and 



374 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

betroth his daughter to the comte d'Angouleme. 
Louis recognized the justice of this petition and, 
breaking the former treaty, celebrated the new 
betrothal with great splendour. This was in 1505. 

In 1514 Louis lost his consort and immediately 
celebrated the marriage against which Anne had 
successfully 2)rotested until the day of her death. 
The king, breaking loose from his long fetters, lost 
no time in consummating his own remarriage with 
the sister of Henri VIII, a young girl of but 
sixteen years; and two months after the celebra- 
tion of these noces nefastes, Louis XII was laid 
in his tomb. The chevalier Bayard tells of the 
king's infatuation for his young bride which 
caused him to break up all the habits of his old 
age — to dine at eight instead of at noon, to retire 
at midnight instead of six as had been his former 
custom. These excesses hastened the end of the 
monarch, and released Marie d'Angleterre, who 
after a short period of mourning, at the Hotel de 
Cluny, was free to marry the Duke of Suffolk 
and return to England. 

A monarchy loves a decorative figurehead. 
Louis XII died lamented by the middle and 
lower classes, whose protector and friend he had 
been, but the nobles, who had looked upon his 
prudence and moderation in pubHc and private 



RENAISSANCE: FRANCOIS I 375 

expenditure as the frugality of a plebeian king, 
welcomed with joy the advent of a lavish, brilliant, 
and aristocratic sovereign, who was to make the 
court the centre of all the splendours of chivalry 
and learning. The new king was fully alive to 
every phase of the awakening that was affecting 
the world, and his accession began a new era for 
France. He was borne in upon the crest of the 
Renaissance. 

In such a movement Francois I had all the 
qualities of a leader. Gallant, brave, generous, 
gay, possessed of the attractions of youth, beauty, 
and high breeding, he fascinated all classes of his 
subjects, and, spending in his large, royal way, 
there was no danger that his will should be 
curbed. In Italy the great houses of Medicis, of 
Este, of Visconti, of Sforzi, patronized the talent 
and promoted the research of the age. Francois I 
could not do less. Under him native talent was 
discovered and flourished, while the king also 
brought into France, from Italy, such masters as 
could be lured away by rich opportunity and 
princely reward, attracting to his court builders, 
painters, sculptors, who worked upon his palaces 
and lived upon his bounty. Leonardo da Vinci 
was his honoured guest and died in the service of the 
king, near Amboise. Primaticcio and II Rosso 



376 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

were installed at Fontainebleau and directed the 
decoration of the palace. 

Fran9ois I not only commenced the building of 
the present Louvre, he collected the nucleus of 
the exhibits it contains, assembling them at Fon- 
tainebleau. He purchased with prodigality, from 
all parts of Europe, paintings, sculptures, an- 
tiques, bronzes, medals, jewels, cameos, and other 
objects of art for his collections. The Italian 
artists of the time clustered around his court like 
bees about the honey pot, and Benvenuto Cellini 
gives a hint of the jealousies that existed between 
them in his lament over Primaticcio's purchase of 
one hundred and twenty-four antique statues, and 
many busts, for the king, as injurious to the 
market for modern works, and his rage against 
his powerful rival is great. 

France has known three such wholesale patrons 
of art — Francois I, Louis XIV, and Napoleon; 
between them they made the Louvre, but of the 
three it is Fran9ois who stands preeminent, it is 
of Francois that we treasure the choicest memo- 
ries. In his superb encouragement of art, in his 
munificent donations to colleges and schools, in 
the liberality of his invitations to scholars and 
poets, he stands unique amidst the sovereigns of 
historv. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE LOUVRE OF LESCOT AND 
GOUJON 

It was a desire to make an effect before his old 
rival, Charles-Quint, that caused Fran9ois I to 
rebuild the Louvre. The emperor was about to 
make a ceremonial visit to Paris, and the king 
resolved not to receive him in the old Tournelles, 
but in the ancient, historic palace of his ancestors, 
on the Seine. The Louvre was falling into decay 
and, in order to hide its decrepitude, vast sums 
were spent upon repainting and regilding and 
upon the hanging of tapestries to hide the crum- 
bling walls. But when all was ready Fran9ois, 
finding the palace still far from worthy of him- 
self or of his illustrious guest, decided to throw 
down the whole structure and to rebuild, within 
the same limits, but on an entirely new plan. 

The demolition of the grosse tour alone took 
five months and cost a prodigious amount of 
money. The tower was regretted by tlie popu- 
lace, who missed the excitement of seeing nobles 
imprisoned there, and its disappearance marked 



378 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

an epoch in the history of France. " C'ctait 
demolir Vhistoire elle-meme," says Martin in his 
Histoire de France, " c'ctait la monarchie de la 
renaissance ahhatant la vielle roijaiite feodale/' 

We are used to thinking of the approach to 
the Louvre as from the Place du Carrousel, from 
the old court of the Tuileries, now transformed 
into a garden. In order to see the Louvre as 
Fran9ois I conceived it and to follow its growth 
through the centuries of its development we must 
quite reverse the usual process of thinking and 
approach the Louvre from Saint-Germain- 
I'Auxerrois, remembering that the Cite was the 
centre of Paris in those days, and that neither the 
Tuileries, nor the garden, nor the Concorde, nor 
the Champs Elysees, nor the Etoile existed for 
Francois I and that in his day Paris was a little 
place and that all behind the crumbling chateau 
of Philippe Auguste was without the walls and 
open country. 

This oldest part of the Louvre, this so greatly 
admired Renaissance facade, lies before us to the 
left of the central Pavilion de I'Horloge. Con- 
ceived by Francois I and completed by his son, 
Henri II, it is still the handsomest piece of archi- 
tecture that the Louvre has to show, and it ranks 
as the most perfect monument of Francois' time. 




fli>jth A. Guaudun 



FACADE OF THE LOUVRE OF PIERRE LESCOT AND JEAN GOUJON. 




['Ill, tit 1. (liniudon 
DETAIL OF FACADE OF LESCOT AND GOLJON. LOLVRE. CALLED PAVILION HENRI II. 




DETAIL OF FACADE OF LESCOT AND GOUJOX. LOUVRE. 
CALLED PAVILION HEXEI II. 



Photo V. Z. 



DETAIL OF FACADE OF LESCOT 

AND GOUJON. 

LOUVEE. 

CALLED PA^^LIOX HENRI II. 




Photo A. (xiraudoh 



THE LOUVRE 381 

The king was so pleased with it that he rewarded 
his architect by making him a canon of Notre- 
Dame, abbot of Clermont, and court counsellor. 

The king's architect was Pierre Lescot, a 
Frenchman of Italian origin. Lescot had trav- 
elled in Italy when Francois I engaged him. The 
chief sculptor was Jean Goujon, a genius whom 
Lescot had discovered, it was said, at work upon 
the doors of Saint-Maclou, at Rouen. Henri II 
confirmed this excellent choice and the two artists 
share the honours of the original wing. 

From 1540 to 1559 were erected the buildings 
of the southwest angle of the court with the 
Pavilion de I'Horloge, which Lemercier finished 
fifty years later. This pavilion marked the limit 
of Lescot's plan and joined the new palace to the 
remaining walls of the mediaeval chateau of 
Philippe Auguste, which seem to have stood until 
Richelieu pulled them down after deciding to 
quadruple the original plan. 

Lescot's work consisted of two buildings, form- 
ing two angles, with a principal entrance facing 
the river. The elaborate fa9ade of the main build- 
ing faced the court of honour; the other side of 
the building, which is quite plain in comparison, 
belonged to the court of service. The second 
building formed a long wing which runs out to 



382 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

the quay and terminates in the two ornate bal- 
conies with grills. Lescot planned it, but Pierre 
Chambige carried it out, under Charles IX and 
Catherine de Medicis, and it is to their epoch that 
belongs the facade with its allegorical figures due 
to the chisel of Barthelemy Prieur, 

The clief-d'ceuvre, then, of Lescot and Goujon 
is the facade of the court facing the east, in the 
left-hand angle of the square. It formed the 
model and gave the scale of the Louvre as orig- 
inally planned. What Goujon modelled is worthy 
of close attention. He made the figures in half- 
relief of Mercury and Abundance, and the central 
group of two geniuses supporting the arms of the 
king, and the groups of chained slaves and the 
panels filled with trophies which separate the 
pilasters of the attic. Lie made the immense frieze 
of graceful festoons held by laughing babies, full of 
elegance and exquisite grace. In this facade mag- 
nificent order vies with rich decoration, Lescot 
seems not to have had the heart to stop the flow 
of the sculptor's genius which borders on the 
sumptuous, but the lines of the architecture which 
surround and frame these different morceaux from 
Goujon's chisel complete them so happily that 
one is tempted to believe that Jean Goujon was 
the author of the whole plan and ensemble. 




Photo A. (Jiniudvw 

PORTEAIT OF CATHERINE DE MEDICIS IN 1555. ANONYMOUS. 
COLLECTION OF THE BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE. 




I'ltutu A. Qiraudon 



BUST OF HENRI 
LOUVRE. 



I. BY GERMAIN PILON. 



THE LOUVRE 385 

If this fav'ade of the Louvre is Lescot's master- 
piece, it was on this palace also that Goiijon dis- 
played his greatest genius. The two continued 
their work throughout the reign of Fran9ois I 
and during the twelve years' reign of Henri II, 
making the Louvre as beautiful within as it was 
without. In the Salle des Cent Suisses, where 
Fran9ois I installed the antiques brought by 
Primaticcio, is the beautiful tribune with its orna- 
ments, held up by four caryatids about thirteen 
feet high, considered one of the greatest works 
of Goujon. He decorated the Escalier Henri II, 
just without this fine room, with the chiffre, the 
arms, and the emblems of the king. Everywhere 
it is the device of Henri II and not that of his 
father which we see — the H with the two slender 
crescents in honour of Diane de Poitiers, the 
king's mistress. As Henri finished his father's 
work he stamped it with his mark. 

Goujon is the great figure of the sculpture of 
the French Renaissance. The facts of his life are 
vague, but he seems to have been born in Paris 
in the first year of the reign of Francois I, to have 
studied in France and to have travelled in Italy, 
and his art is the most direct reflection of the 
opulent age which gave him birth. 

The work attributed to him upon the exquisite 



386 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Saint-Maclou, at Rouen, makes largely the 
sculptural distinction of that edifice. If Goujon 
did it, it would be his earliest known sculpture. 
His best-known work is his allegorical portrait 
of Diane de Poitiers, the favourite of two genera- 
tions of kings, for the story goes that Fran9ois 
loved her before Henri chose her for his favourite. 
Henri not only gave her Chenonceau, the most 
beautiful of the chateaux of the Loire, he built 
for her the Chateau d'Anet, whose beautiful 
fa9ade is one of the cherished exhibits of the 
court of the Beaux- Arts, another object saved by 
Lenoir from the madness of the Revolution. 

This portrait statue was one of a pair made 
by Goujon for the court of the Chateau d'Anet. 
Lenoir brought it to Paris and it is now in the 
Louvre (Salle Jean Goujon). It shows Diana, 
the huntress, reclining upon her stag, while her 
favourite dogs, Procion and Syrius, play about her. 
The urn upon which she lies stood, in its original 
setting, upon a pedestal flanked by four bronze 
dogs, and occupied the middle of a basin from 
which a fountain sprang. 

Since the Greeks no sculptor had treated the 
nude with such science, such refinement, such 
souplesse. The head alone inspires a great 
eulogium. The arrangement of the beautiful hair. 




Photo A. Oiraudon 



FACADE OF THE CHATEAU D ANEX. 

BUII.T BY HENRI II FOR DIANE I)E POITIERS. 

IN THE COURT OF THE l:COI,E DES BEAUX-ARTS. 




Photo A. Oirauduii 



DIANE CHASSERESSE. 

GROUP MADE FOR THE CHATEAU D'ANET. 

BY JEAN GOUJON. 

LOUVRE. 



DETAIL: HEAD OF DIANE. 
BY JEAN GOUJON. 
FROM THE GROUP MADE FOR 
THE CHATEAU D'ANET. 
LOUVRE. 




Plioto A. Giraudon 




THE FOUNTAIN OF THE INNOCENTS. 

RECONSTRUCTED. 

FROM THE ORIGINAL OF LESCCT AND GOUJON. 







FRIEZE OF THE FONTAINE DES INNOCENTS. 
ORIGINAL SCULPTURE BY JEAN GOUJON. LOU VI 



Photo A. Oiraudon 



m n 






% 



"h 




' I 



r, 


1 




W. . 




•„, 


k>t' 




^■^r 



1 




FIGURES FROM THE FONTAINE DES INNOCENTS. 

BY JEAN GOUJON. 

FKOM CASTS IN THE TKOCADEKO. 




»'%• 



t'dl 



Photos A. Giraudon 



THE LOUVRE 891 

the finely chiselled profile, the expressive eyes, the 
ravishing drawing of the mouth and chin, and 
the delicately cut ear, all bespeak the utmost art. 
The body is distinctly that of a goddess — smooth, 
lithe, and long-limbed, it seems like that of some 
slender faun, alert and graceful, fitted for the 
fleetest chase, gifted with supernatural sense of 
the approach of quarry. Does she not even re- 
semble her companion the stag? One must not 
seek in this statue the portrait of the mistress 
of the chateau — flattery cannot be pushed so far. 
The Duchess of Valentinois, whose face even in 
youth was not attractive, must at this time have 
passed her fiftieth year. 

In the same room in the Louvre are the panels 
— the Descent from the Cross, and the Evan- 
gelists, from the rood-loft of Saint-Germain- 
I'Auxerrois, destroyed in the XVIIIth century; 
and a bust of Henri II. 

Goujon decorated the Chateau d'Ecouen, the 
Hotel Carnavalet, the Hotel de Ville, and the 
Porte Saint-Antoine, which contained the four 
reliefs representing la Seine, la Marne, I'Oise, 
and Venus born of the waves. These reliefs, 
after having figured for a time on Beaumarchais' 
house, are now in the Louvre. 

The Louvre also contains the original sculpture 



392 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

from the celebrated Fountain of the Innocents, 
in which we see again the combined genius of 
Pierre Lescot and Jean Goujon. Originally 
placed against the Church of the Innocents, it 
formed a sort of tribune to celebrate the entrance 
of Henri II into Paris, upon his accession to the 
throne. It had then but three arcades, between 
which were the six familiar panels with the low 
reliefs of water nymphs to whom the fountain 
was dedicated. Each arcade was surmounted by 
a frieze in relief, while under the whole the water 
flowed in a thin sheet over another band of sculp- 
ture composed of tritons and genies of the sea. 

It is this under frieze which the Louvre treas- 
ures, together with the panels of the original 
nymphs, for when the fountain was changed to its 
present form the reliefs were found to be men- 
aced by the humidity and were taken to the 
museum. Modified in the form of a square 
pavilion or loggia, the fountain still stands in the 
centre of the Square des Innocents, in the Rue 
Saint-Denis. Pajou made the fourth face. The 
great beauty of the panels popularized the name 
of Goujon and established his supremacy in the 
art of low relief. The movement of the mythical 
figures of the frieze is joyous and abandoned, the 



THE LOUVRE 393 

composition is elegant and the drawing and 
modelling at once virile and suave. 

The fountain itself stands in a shabby neighbour- 
hood, off the beaten track of tourists, and is 
often overlooked, but is so fine that one feels well 
rewarded for the effort to look it up. Time and 
exposure have given to the stone a warm patine 
which adds greatly to its charm. 

The environment gains also in significant mem- 
ory as having been the scene of the assassination 
of Henri IV, who was killed by Ravaillac, while 
driving in an open carriage through the Rue de la 
Feronnerie, in the immediate vicinity, and the 
cemetery, upon the site of the present square, 
formed a sort of Campo-Santo, where, during six 
centuries, more than half the population of Paris 
was interred. Rich and poor seem to have been 
buried here, the rich in monumental tombs above 
ground but the poor were carried into deep vaults 
underground, sometimes twenty-five feet in depth 
and containing as many as fifteen hundred ca- 
davers. La Fontaine was interred in this place, 
and here Madame de Pompadour's body was laid 
for a time. When the cemetery was suppressed, 
in the interest of the public health, the cofRn of 
Louis XV's mistress was found and her family 



394 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

removed it to the new cemetery without the walls 
— the catacombs — where, says Soulavie, elle fut 
confondue avec tous les morts. 

We are constantly filled with admiration for 
the French spirit of reconnaissance — the word 
seems stronger than its English equivalents, 
which are not wholly equivalent — whereby old 
memories are conserved in the names of the 
streets. A church dedicated to the Holy Inno- 
cents, built under Louis le Gros, and torn down 
just previous to the Revolution, gives the clue to 
the name of the square and the street which runs 
along its southern boundary. The cemetery had 
existed from before the time of Philippe 
Auguste. The church and the cemetery with its 
cloisters, which served as charnel houses, pre- 
sented a bizarre combination of Gothic arcades, 
chantry chapels, crosses, tombs, monumental tab- 
lets and frescoes. The church was closed in 1786 
and the Marche aux Innocents camped upon the 
site of the cemetery, adapting the charnel houses as 
market stalls. Some of them still exist as taverns 
and stables. The Marche is now blotted out by 
the vast buildings of the modern Halles Centrales. 
The Rue Pierre Lescot runs past the west side 
of the Square des Innocents. The name ties 
together the association of the architect with the 




Photo A. Giraudon 



CAKYATIDS AND TRIBUNE. SALLE DES CARIATIDES : LOUVRE. 
SCULPTURE BY JEAN GOUJON. 



MEDALLION FROM THE SALLE DES 
CARIATIDES. BY JEAN GOUJON. 
LOUVRE. 




I'hoU, A Oinnnhiii 



THE LOUVRE 397 

old fountain, the sole tangible survivor of the past. 

The chevalier Bernin considered the fountain 
the most beautiful morceau in France, as much 
for its true proportions, the relation between 
architecture and figures, as for the delicacy of its 
abandoned naiads. 

We have seen at Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois the 
Gothic choir modernized by the vandal architect, 
Bacarit, in 1715. At this time the noble rood- 
loft, designed by Pierre Lescot and sculptured 
by Jean Goujon was removed. Nothing remains 
of it but the panels contained in the museum of 
the Louvre. 

The two artists worked together with singular 
felicity. After Francois I died, Henri II kept 
them on continuing the building and embellish- 
ment of the Louvre, and in 1548 the palace was 
so advanced that Henri II adopted it as the resi- 
dence of the court. The palace was still small; 
it consisted of the original angle on the court, 
carried to its full height, and of the wing which 
runs out to the Seine, which had only one storey 
— the Galerie d'Apollon over it was added by 
Henri IV. 

There is an entrance under the Pavilion de 
THorloge which conducts the visitor at once into 
the oldest part of the building. It stands unique 



398 A LOITERER IX PARIS 

and apart and commends itself as a complete 
little visit. Through a vestibule devoted to the 
inevitable checking of sticks and umbrellas, one 
passes at once into the famous Salle des Caria- 
tides, in which Fran9ois I installed the antiques 
which Primaticcio brought him from Italy. 
Fran9ois intended it as a great low-ceiled room 
after the style of the ancients. 

It was begun about 1546 by Pierre Lescot on 
the site of the chapel and grand' salle of Saint- 
Louis, where this prince condemned Euguerrand 
de Coucy to pay a penalty of twelve thousand 
livres parisis. The caryatids from which the room 
takes its name were ordered from Goujon in 
1550, and were completed before the work on the 
room was abandoned, for this room was not car- 
ried out as first planned, but left unfinished until 
1806, when Napoleon's architects, Percier and 
Fontaine, developed it into the highly ornate 
apartment it has now become. It is very grand 
and very consistent, but possibly Lescot's design 
gave more relief to the caryatids, which are clearly 
the feature. 

During the reign of Henri II and the regency 
of Catherine de Medicis it served as antichamhre 
to the queen's apartments and from its size and 
magnificence was the scene of many important 



THE LOUVRE 399 

events. Here, on August 19, 1572, Marguerite 
(le Valois, daughter of Henri II and Catherine, 
was married to the young Protestant king, Henri 
of Navarre, afterwards Henri IV. Admiral 
Cohgny and many other Huguenot leaders were 
present at the ceremony. 

This marriage, Catherine pretended, was to 
crown and consummate the reconcilement of the 
two religions, hut there is too much reason to 
helieve that the king and his mother had from 
the first suggested this union with no other object 
than that of drowning the day of its celebration 
in the blood of their unsuspecting subjects. 

As the day on which the marriage was to take 
place approached, the Huguenot gentlemen, and 
even numbers of the humbler orders who be- 
longed to that persuasion, flocked to Paris from 
all quarters; and by the middle of August the 
capital had collected within its walls nearly all 
the persons of consequence in France attached to 
the new faith. 

On the evening of Sunday the 17th the es- 
pousals of the royal pair were celebrated with 
becoming festivities in the ante-room of the apart- 
ments of the dowager queen; and on the follow- 
ing morning the marriage ceremony was per- 
formed on an elevated platform erected before 



400 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

the great ceiiti-al door of Notre-Dame, in the 
presence of a splendid company composed of both 
CathoHcs and Protestants. The celebrated De 
Thou, who was then a young man of nineteen and 
had come to Paris in the suite of the king of 
Navarre, was present on this occasion, as he has 
mentioned both in his Life and in his great his- 
torical work. 

After the ceremony the bride and those of the 
company who were Catholics advanced to the 
high altar to hear mass, while Henri, Coligny, 
and the rest of the Protestants retired into the 
choir. On leaving the church the party repaired 
to the bishop's palace, beside the cathedral, where 
they dined and in the evening a supper and 
masked ball again collected the revellers in the 
grand hall of the Louvre, though most of the 
Protestants were restrained by the severity of 
their religious principles from attending this 
festivity. 

Five days later, on the eve of Saint Bartholo- 
mew, the storm broke with the assassination of 
Admiral Coligny and at midnight on the 23rd 
Catherine precipitated the massacre by ordering the 
signal to be sounded from the belfry of Saint- 
Germain-lAuxerrois. The order was given in this 
room. 



THE LOUVRE 401 

After the death of Henri IV his effigy in wax, 
then his body enclosed in its coffin, was exposed 
in the Salle des Cariatides. Under Louis XIII 
comedians, coming to France from Florence, gave 
performances and ballets in this room; here also 
during the regency of Anne dAutriche a theatre 
was installed and, on October 24, 1658, Nicomcde 
of Corneille, and Le Docteur Amoureux, of Mo- 
liere, a piece never printed and to-day lost, were 
presented. Moliere played the role of the doctor. 
After this performance Louis XIV authorized 
Moliere's troupe to take the name troupe de Mon- • 
sieur, and to play in the Salle du Petit-Bourbon 
alternately with the Italian comedians. 

After the death of Henri II, Catherine de 
Medicis conceived a horror of the old Tournelles, 
near which the king had been wounded, and in 
which he had breathed his last. The Tournelles 
appears to have been the alternative residence of 
the reigning monarch and would have been the 
logical dwelling of the dowager, a state of dubious 
importance to which the proud daughter of Lo- 
renzo de ^Medicis looked forward as of probable 
long duration, since she was only forty years old 
at the time of the tragedy. She at once set about 
providing herself with a palace which should vie 
with the splendours of the palace of the reigning 



402 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

monarch, and in the meantime established herself 
with her children — there were seven living — in the 
Louvre. rran9ois II, a frail youth of sixteen 
years, was made the official king, while Catherine 
became the power behind the throne, exercising it 
the more mercilessly because of her long years of 
insignificance as the consort of a monarch whose 
whole life was bound up in his infatuation for 
another. 

During the twenty-six years of her marriage 
with Henri II Catherine lived abandoned in the 
midst of the court. Finding no place in the heart 
of her spouse, which was completely dominated 
by the Duchess of Valentinois, she hoped as 
mother to gain her just ascendency; but during 
ten years she hoped in vain, in complete sterility; 
then she gave in rapid succession ten children to 
the king, without exercising the least influence 
over him. Her position was deplorable, in the 
constant presence of her rival, of whom the king 
made a third at their table. The queen suff^ered 
this indignity in silence. She had, on the other 
hand, a powerful adversary in jNIontmorency, the 
old high constable. So long as she had no children 
he urged Henri to repudiate her; when she be- 
came a mother he tried to rouse suspicions in the 
king as to her fidelity. 







MARGUERITE DE VALOIS (CALLED LA HEIXE MARGOT ) , 

RRIDE OF HENRI OF NAVARKE. 

lUBLIOTIIEQUE NATIONAI.E. 

FROil A DRAWING BY FRANCOIS CLOUET. 



IIEXEI OF NAVARRE 
(HENRI IV) 

BY FRANCOIS QUES?;EL. 
lilBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE. 




THE LOUVRE 405 

The death of the king opened to his widow a 
career of vengeance, but she knew how to restrain 
herself to the advantage of her ultimate interests. 
Diane de Poitiers was still an nnportant figure, 
as mother-in-law to one of the princes of Lor- 
raine, and Catherine wished to be at peace with 
this powerful family, allied to her own by the 
marriage of the reigning king, Francois II, with 
Mary Stuart, a niece of the Guises. Catherine 
contented herself for the moment with merely 
demanding of her old rival the choice chateau of 
Chenonceau on the Cher, giving her Chaumont 
in exchange. Towards Montmorency she pre- 
served the same temperate attitude, biding her 
time. 

While awaiting the construction of the Tuil- 
eries, which was to fm-nish her an abode whose 
dignity should express her own, the queen mother 
proceeded to enlarge the Louvre in a style com- 
mensurate with the large fann'ly it now contained. 
During the reign of her second son, Charles IX, 
the work was pushed actively by Pierre Chambige. 
It was at this epoch that was commenced the 
facade with the sculptures by Prieur, as well as 
the Petite Galeric (to-day the Galerie (VApollon) 
and the Grande Galerie, parallel to the Seine, 
which is attributed to Thibaut Metezeau. Cham- 



406 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

bige erected a portico with rooms above it along 
the quay, connected with the original buildings 
by means of the one-storey wing which Lescot 
had planned. This wing served as a communica- 
tion between the old logis cle la reine and the 
new apartments of Catherine, under the Grande 
Galerie. 

At the extremity of this wing opens the fa- 
mous so-called balcony of Charles IX, facing the 
quay, where tradition says he fired upon the 
Huguenots, who, refusing to believe in the com- 
plicity of the king, were about to cross the river 
and offer him their aid. The balcony bears the 
monogram of Louis XIII and Anne dAutriche, 
and did not exist at the time of the massacre, but 
with its beautiful grills, its sculptured arch, its gen- 
eral air of antiquity, it will never shed completely 
the tradition of this horror. 

The palace seems to have been filled with con- 
fusion and terror. Marguerite de Valois has 
given us in her memoirs an account of so much of 
the tragedy as fell under her own observation. 
While she lay asleep in her apartment, she was 
awakened bj^ a violent knocking at the door, and 
a voice crying out, " Xavarre! Navarre! " " My 
nurse," says the queen, " thinking it was the king. 



THE LOUVRE 407 

my husband, ran quicklj^ to the door. Upon open- 
ing it a gentleman rushed into the room, bleeding 
from wounds in different parts of his person, 
and pursued by four soldiers. Seeking fran- 
tically a place of refuge, he threw himself on the 
bed where I lay. I, feeling myself caught hold 
of by the man, threw myself out of the bed on 
the floor, he falling with me and continuing to 
clasp me around the body. I knew not whether 
it was he or I that the soldiers wished to kill; we 
both cried out, and the one was as much frightened 
as the other. At last, by the mercy of God, 
M. de Nancy, the captain of the guards, made 
his appearance, and finding me in this condition, 
even while he had compassion on me, could not 
restrain himself from laughing. He reproved the 
soldiers for their violence, made them leave the 
apartment, and upon my entreaties granted the 
life of the poor man who had hold of me and 
whom I caused to be put to bed and taken care 
of in my closet. For myself, having changed my 
chemise, which was covered with blood, and put 
on a nightgown, I passed more dead than alive 
into the apartment of my sister, Madame de 
Lorraine. While I was entering the ante- 
chamber, the doors of which were thrown open, a 



408 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

gentleman named Bourse, running from the sol- 
diers who pursued him, was pierced by a halbert 
three paces from me." 

Lescot seems to have dropped out of the work 
on the Louvre under Catherine de Medicis, but 
Jean Goujon continued his embellishments until 
the day of his death, which occurred on the fate- 
ful day of the massacre. The fact alone comes 
down to us, with no reliable account of the affair. 
One tradition makes the sculptor die of a shot 
from an arquebus upon the scaffolding of the 
Gt'ande Galerie, chisel in hand; another in the 
Cimitiere des Innocents, retouching the sculpture 
of his fountain. But the fountain had been 
finished years before, and it seems unlikely that 
Goujon, who was a Huguenot, would have ex- 
posed himself upon the Louvre, which men of his 
religion were fleeing for their lives, while others 
were being cut down under the eye of the king 
himself, and so the manner of his end remains 
a mystery. 

Of this first great flowering of the Renaissance, 
in France, Jean Goujon stands out as the most 
expressive figure. We have said that he sub- 
mitted his art to the taste of the reign which 
brought him into prominence. As the great un- 
known Gothic sculptors reflected the mystery and 



THE LOUVRE 409 

spiritual influences of their time, so Jean Goujon 
was caught up with the growing opulence and 
power of the court. His individuality seems 
merged with that of Francois I, of Henri II, of 
Diane de Poitiers. 

He had an exquisite sentiment of elegance and 
of feminine grace, of the luxuriant forms of in- 
fants, and of the allure of youth. His instinct was 
strong for monumental decoration, which he con- 
ceives in his own way. His work has character;, 
poetry, sentiment, sumptuous beauty, appealing 
charm. In it is no trace of definite influence. 
He had no master, followed no tradition, be- 
longed to no school. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE LOUVRE: DEVELOPMENT AND 
ACHIEVEMENT 

Under the reign of Henri II the Louvre oc- 
cupied about 30,000 square metres of space. But 
Catherine de Medicis found it still small for the 
large royal family clustered about her. Under 
the reign of her third son, Henri III, four queens 
had their suites there — the reigning queen, Louise 
de Vaudemont; the dowager, Catherine de 
Medicis; Marguerite de Valois, queen of Na- 
varre; and. Elisabeth d'Autriche, widow of 
Charles IX. 

Meanwhile Catherine had provided for herself 
the magnificent palace of the Tuileries, built at 
some distance from the then existing parts of the 
Louvre, and without the walls of the city. The 
palace, which took its name from a manufactory 
of tiles which had formerly occupied the site, 
succeeded to a villa which Louise de Savoie had 
o])tained from her son, Francois I, with the old 
tile works, as a place of residence during his 
reign. After her death, in 1531, her villa con- 



ITS DEVELOPMENT 411 

tinued to be a property at the disposal of royal 
favourites until Catherine took it, and, adding con- 
siderably to the domain, employed Philibert De- 
lorme to erect for her a palace in keeping with 
her illustrious ancestry and her own ambitions. 

The Tuileries stood first as a detached build- 
ing, whose chief facade lay upon the present Rue 
des Tuileries. It was approached from the Cour 
des Tuileries, where now stands the Arc de Tri- 
omphe du Carrousel, and in the rear stretched the 
beautiful garden of the palace. The stones for 
the building were brought from the quarries of 
Vaugirard and Notre-Dame-des-Champs, and in 
order to cross the river, where is now situated the 
Pont Royal, a ferry, or bac, was established, 
leased to the community in 1564. A road was 
opened up on the rive gauche for the carting of 
stones for the palace, and, since it led directly to 
the ferry became the Bue du Bac. 

The palace consisted of a central body with a 
tower and wings terminating in square pavilions. 
The grand avarit-corps du milieu was erected by 
Delorme — he built the fa9ade towards the garden 
— and the ends by Jean Bullant, who continued 
the work after the death of his predecessor. The 
palace was noble in form and of a picturesqueness 
not attained by other portions of the long ram- 



412 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

bling buildings of the Louvre itself, than which, 
having been done under one inspiration, it had 
more completeness and unity. It gave point and 
climax to the now rather meaningless gardens, 
designed as a foil to the majestic facade of the 
palace. The gardens were completely done over 
by Lenotre, under Louis XIV, and as Paris grew 
towards the west, Delorme's fa9ade became the 
familiar one and was magnificently approached 
from the Place de la Concorde through the long 
gardens laid out in groves of chestnut trees and 
handsomely terraced. The palace was destroyed 
by the Commune in 1871. 

When Marie de Medicis came to Paris to re- 
place the divorced Marguerite de Valois as queen 
of France, she is said to have regarded with dis- 
dainful amusement the proportions of the Louvre, 
which to her eye, accustomed to measure palaces 
by the Pitti and the Vatican, seemed a little place 
in comparison with its destiny. 

Henri IV, piqued perhaps by his scornful 
bride, now planned an immense extension of the 
Louvre which should unite the palace with the 
Tuileries. Du Cerceau, who built the Pont-Neuf, 
and Louis Metezeau were his architects. He 
first extended the Tuileries of Delorme and Bul- 
lant from the southern pavilion out towards the 




Photo A O fraud on 



CATHERINE DE MEDICIS. 

VUOM A DRAWING : ANO.NYirOUS 

IN THE BIBLIOTUEQUE NATIONALE. 



.■J 




L- 






Photo A. (liraudon 
LA REINE MARGOT, ABOUT 1573. 
ANONYM Ol'S DRAWING AT THE BIBLIOTHKQUE NATIONAI.E. 



ITS DEVELOPMENT 415 

Seine and continued the galeries du hord de Veau 
from where Catherine de Medicis had left off, 
about opposite the present Pont du Carrousel, 
along the Quai des Tuileries to their junction with 
the newer palace and here he planted an immense 
pavilion — the Pavilion de Flore — of which we 
see to-day a conscientious reproduction. The por- 
ticos of Catherine de Medicis were then enclosed 
and a new fa9ade added to the whole of the 
Grande Galerie, to make it harmonise with the 
later constructions. In 1618 this immense gallery 
was completed and bound the Louvre and Tuil- 
eries together. 

The fa9ade of the long gallery, extending along 
the Quai du Louvre, from the balcony of Charles 
IX to the Pavilion de Lesdiguieres, is full of 
interesting ornament and sculpture in relief, of 
the time of Henri IV. We see his initial with 
a multitude of devices signifying royalty and 
power, trophies of war, as well as shells and 
tridents in allusion to the situation of the fa9ade 
bordering the Seine. The Porte Jean Goujon, 
which opens in about the middle of this exten- 
sion, is a rich monument of renaissance architec- 
ture. 

Over the wing containing the balcony of 
Charles IX, Henri IV now completed the cele- 



416 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

brated Galerie d'Apollon as a link between the 
upper storey of the Louvre of his predecessors 
and his additions. The Galerie dfApollon was 
burned out under Louis XIV in 1661, and re- 
built from designs by Charles Le Brun, who 
directed the decorations at Versailles. Le Brun 
left the mural paintings unfinished; he had in- 
tended a figure of Apollo to be the central point 
of his scheme in honour of the Roi-Soleil. The 
celebrated ceiling, representing Apollo's victory 
over Python, is the work of Eugene Delacroix, one 
of the two greatest masters of his epoch. It was 
done under the Second Republic, in 1849. 

The Galerie cVApollon is now the most beau- 
tiful hall in the Louvre and ranks with the finest 
in the world. An interesting and appropriate 
feature of the decoration is the series of portraits 
of the builders of the Louvre — the kings, the 
architects, the sculptors, and the painters who 
worked upon it at different periods, done in 
Gobelins tapestries. It is a gallery of distin- 
guished men, and the whole decoration makes one 
of those charming bits of association and recogni- 
tion for which France is famous. 

Three rooms installed in the wing of the court 
which overlooks Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois and 
known as Les Anciennes Salles du Musee des 



F" 



'*™^v 



it) 



L 



CHARLES IX, IN 1570. 

FROM A DRAWING BY FRANQOIS CLOUET. 

IN THE BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE. 



ELISABETH D'aUTRICHE, ABOUT 1570, 
WIFE OF CHARLES IX. 

FROM A PAINTING BY FRANCOIS CLOUET. 
IN THE LOUVRE. 




riioto A. Girauaon 



ITS DEVELOPMENT 419 

Sowvcrains are amongst the most beautiful which 
the Louvre has to show and contain much that 
relates to the early history of the building. En- 
tering by the stairway of the Egyptian Museum, 
the first room is panelled from the apartments 
which Louis XIII prepared for Anne of Austria 
in the chateau of Vincennes. 

The second room, called the Chamhre a VAl- 
cove, is panelled with handsome wood carving from 
the Salle des Sept Cheniinees erected under Fran- 
9ois I and Henri 11. This specimen and that in 
the room adjoining are the only carvings of the 
royal apartments now extant. The doors are rich 
in the devices of these kings, and the panelling 
shows the letters of Henri and Diane interlaced. 
The alcove is historic as the body of Henri IV 
was laid there after his nuu'der, and the four 
cherubs which sustain the canopy are by Gilles 
Guerin. 

In the third room — La Chamhre de la Parade 
— the panelling is again from the older part of 
the Louvre, while the faded tapestries belonged 
to cardinal Mazarin. These rooms have been 
much despoiled of their former installation, chiefly 
due to the energy and historic interest of the 
Empress Eugenie. Though they merely reassem- 
ble parts of the older building, they have never- 



420 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

theless a convincing air of antiquity and are of the 
finest of their day. 

After Henri IV, Marie de Medicis abandoned 
the Louvre and turned her entire attention to 
the erection of her dowager palace, the Luxem- 
bourg, to which after the conclusion of the minor- 
ity of Louis XIII, she expected to retire in glory. 
The first kings which came after Llenri IV occu- 
pied themselves with completing the square 
around the original court, making it four times 
the size of the old chateau of Philippe Auguste. 
The new buildings of Fran9ois I had merely 
replaced the original walls on the two sides of the 
quadrangle which formed the court of the 
medieval fortress; but Louis XIII and Richelieu 
quadrupled the plan. As one regards attentively 
the famous fa9ade of Lescot it becomes more and 
more evident that it belongs to a small, compact 
building and that it loses considerably in being 
thinned out to cover the four sides of a so greatly 
enlarged court. 

Under Louis XIII the last vestiges of the 
mediaeval chateau were thrown down. Jacques 
Lemercier was now the court architect; he com- 
pleted the facade of the Pavilion de I'Horloge 
which became the centre of the west side of the 
court. It is adorned in a style flamboyant as com- 




PliDto A. Oirauaon 



HENRI IV. 

BY BARTHELEMY PBIEUB. 

LOUVRE. 



LOUISE I)E VAUDEMONT, 
WIFE OF HENRI III. 
FROM A DRAWING 
(SCHOOL OF DUMOUSTIER). 
IN THE LOUVRE 





i^' 


f 





Photo A. Oiraudon 



ITS DEVELOPMENT 423 

pared to the facade of Lescot and Goujon, and 
bears eight caryatids })y Sarazin and other sculp- 
tures by Guerin, Poissant, etc. Lemercier com- 
menced at the same time the ground floor of the 
north wing, on the side of the Rue de Rivoh. 
Marie de JNIedicis and Aime d'Autriche apphed 
themselves to the embellishment of the interior, sec- 
onded by the talents of Ambroise Dubois, de Biard, 
and Michel Anguier. Lemercier repeated in a 
general way the fa9ade of Lescot, and the frieze of 
garlands and babies so happily conceived by 
Goujon was copied for the whole of the four sides 
of the enlarged court. 

Louis XIV completed the court, employing as 
his architect, his physician, Claude Perrault, to 
whom we owe the colonnade which bears his 
name (1667-1670). This colonnade has a certain 
style and character, though it may be taken as 
a clear indication of the point at which the 
French Renaissance in its decline began to follow 
slavishly the models of antique architecture, and 
it bears little relation to the original plan or to 
the magnificent facade of Henri IV, to which one 
returns with always increasing interest and pleas- 
ure. After this great effort Louis XIV lost 
interest in the Louvre in devoting himself 



424 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

tirely to the building of Versailles, his great 
architectural monument. 

Louis XV spent some few years of his minority 
at the Tuileries, but Versailles was his favourite 
residence and Louis XVI lived either at Ver- 
sailles or Saint-Cloud until he was brought to 
Paris as a prisoner and condemned to live at the 
Tuileries from 1789 to 1792. 

Meanwhile the Louvre remained an unfinished 
pile until Napoleon came to the throne. It was in 
the year 1800 that Bonaparte first came to reside 
at the Tuileries. The palace still bore the placards 
inscribed with the decree of August 10, 1792: 
" La royaute en Finance est abolie et ne se 
relevera jamais/'' Soon after the fleur-de-lys was 
picked out of the furniture of the Tuileries to be 
replaced by the bee of the Bonapartes. 

The Tuileries after so much tragedy now entered 
upon its most thrilling times. In the chapel 
Napoleon was married to Josephine, who had long 
been his wife by the civil law. Berthier and 
Talleyrand were the witnesses and cardinal Fesch 
performed the ceremony. Here also the emperor 
received Pius VII (the pope was lodged in the 
Pavilion de Flore) ; thence he went to his corona- 
tion, here he married his different brothers and 



ITS DEVELOPMENT 425 

sisters, and here the divorce of Josephine was 
pronounced. 

Napoleon commanded the completion of the 
Louvre upon a large scale in 1805, recommend- 
ing his architects, Percier and Fontaine, in con- 
structing the north connecting gallery between 
the Louvre and the Tuileries, to provide vast 
apartments for the vassal sovereigns whom he 
should lead back from his triumphant campaign 
in Russia! This wing had been completed as far 
as the Pavilion de Rohan when the emperor was 
deposed. 

Napoleon also built the Arc de Triomphe du 
Carrousel to commemorate his victories in 1805. 
Percier and Fontaine were the architects and 
built it in imitation of the Arch of Septimus 
Severus, at Rome. Napoleon brought from 
Venice the famous bronze horses of the cathe- 
dral, in 1797, and they graced this arch until 1815, 
when they were restored to Venice, and to their 
noble situation over the portal of San Marco. 
Forming once part of an ancient quadriga these 
horses were amongst the most valuable of the loot 
which Napoleon brought from Italy. The pres- 
ent quadriga was designed by Bosio. The marble 
reliefs on the sides represent the Battle of Aus- 



426 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

terlitz, the capitulation of Ulm, the peace of 
Tilsit, and the entry into Munich. On the north 
end is the entry into Vienna, and on the south 
end the conclusion of peace at Pressburg. 

The unity of the Louvre and Tuileries was 
finally achieved by Napoleon III, to whom we 
owe the ponderous fa9ades with their projecting 
domed pavilions, their Corinthian columns, their 
porticos and caryatids, their eighty-six statues of 
celebrated Frenchmen, and their sixty-three groups 
of allegorical statues. Visconti and Lefuel were the 
architects, and the most admirable part of their 
work is the restoration of the Pavilion de Flore 
and the facade along the Quai .des Tuileries, 
which had been destroyed or damaged by the fire 
of 1871. It is interesting to compare the details 
of the ornament and to note that the bee of the 
Bonapartes replaces the fleur-de-lys and the im- 
perial eagle the winged rod and the entwined ser- 
pents of the Bourbons. 

The Second Empire executed merely what the 
republic had planned in 1848. From 1848 to 
1853 Duban restored, from the designs of Le 
Brun, the Galerie d'Apollon, which had been 
ruined by the fire of 1661. In 1857 Napoleon III 
inaugurated the nouveau Louvre built by Lefuel 
upon the plans of Visconti. We owe to Lefuel 




ARC DE TRIOMPHE DU CARROr'SEL. 
PERCFER AND FONTAINE, AKCIIITECTS. 
BCILX BY NAI'OLEON IN 1S05. 



P/ioto A Giraiidon 




Photo A. 
THE WINDOW OF CHARLES IX. 
LOUVRE. 





— ^P^ 


K= 




# 


p~ 


f ^ 


S' -r 



Photo A. Giraudon 
FRAGMENT OF THE PAI.AIS DES TUILERIES. 
BY PHILIBERT DELORME. 
GARDEN DE.S TUILERIES. 



ITS DEVELOPMENT 429 

the actual buildings which border the Seine from 
the Pavilion Lesdiguieres to the Pavilion de 
Flore inclusive, and which replace the original 
constructions of Du Cerceau. The three large 
arches which open upon the Place du Carrousel 
were part of Visconti's plan. 

An army of sculptors was now employed in the 
decoration. Amongst the most notable were 
Barye, Simart, Duret, Foyatier, Jaley, Auguste 
Dumont, Rude, Carpeaux, Perraud, Cavelier, 
Eugene Guillaume, Aime Millet, and Jouffroy. 
A high-relief in bronze by Antonin Mercie — the 
Genius of the Arts astride Pegasus — crowns the 
whole. 

In 1900 the great Salle Rubens was opened in 
the former salle des Etats, with the chain of small 
rooms which surround it, and with the installa- 
tion of the magnificent series of decorations from 
the Luxembourg Palace the work on the Louvre 
was terminated. After more than three centuries 
of activity the Louvre was now finished. 

In its older parts the Louvre unites some of 
the finest work of that group of valiant architects 
produced by the first period of the French Renais- 
sance — Pierre Lescot, Philibert Delorme, Jean 
Bullant, Pierre Chambige, Jacques- Androuet Du 
Cerceau — whose genius was sufiicient to counter- 



430 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

balance the influences of the Italians quartered 
at Fontainebleau. Thanks to them the second 
period of the Renaissance, the period frankly 
classic, far from descending as one might have 
feared to the level of rank imitation, opened a 
new route and became an occasion if not for great 
creations like those of the Xlllth century, at 
least for original combinations and dispositions at 
once elegant, picturesque, delicate, and rich. 

The chateaux of Blois, Gaillon (part of its 
fa9ade is at the Beaux-Arts), Azay-le-Rideau, 
Chenonceau, Amboise, Usse, Tanlay, Ancy-le- 
Franc, Verneuil, Vaux, Maisons, the old chateaux 
of Versailles, the Tuileries, the Louvre, Fontaine- 
bleau, etc., are amongst the most brilliant and 
richest productions of the French Renaissance in 
its divers periods. In these dwellings there exists 
nothing of the feudal castle, — no more dungeons, 
towers, turrets, winding passages; these are large 
open palaces, easy of access, surrounded by mag- 
nificent gardens, decorated inside with paintings, 
offering an application of antique forms if you 
like, but full of taste and preserving a character 
essentially original and French. 



CHAPTER XIX 
FOUNDATIONS OF THE MUSEUM 

The Louvre as a museum dates from the Revo- 
lution, Its chief splendours are due to the three 
kings we have already mentioned — Fran9ois I, 
Louis XIV, and Napoleon Bonaparte. Francois 
was the genuine amateur, Louis the rapacious 
collector, and Napoleon the prodigious robber, 
whose magnificent appropriations make the 
crowning feature of the collections. To these 
three chief figures it is only fair to add that rare 
altruist, Alexandre Lenoir, of whom we have 
talked so much, the artist who risked even his life 
to save for France and for posterity the treasures 
which the Revolutionists were doing their utmost 
to destroy. 

When the Tuileries became the uneasy seat of 
the royal family during the Reign of Terror, the 
Louvre was turned over as a storage house for 
the royal collections which the government was 
seizing and making national property. To the 
riches of the Cabinet dii Boy pouring in from 
Versailles were added in a short time those of 



432 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

the Convent of the Petits-Augustins. On Au- 
gust 10, 1793, the Convention decreed the founda- 
tion of the national museum. 

As Fran9ois dominates as the first genuine 
patron of the arts, so the pictures which remain 
from his collection at Fontainebleau speak from 
the walls of the present museum with a special 
appeal, as paintings bought not solely for the 
aggrandizement of a monarch, but selected by a 
man of taste because of their intrinsic merits. 
That Francois was innately an artistic personality 
seems evident from his portraits alone, but that 
his natural tastes were stimulated by his wars in 
Italy there can be no question. Amongst the 
painters and sculptors invited to his court were 
Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea del Sarto, Benvenuto 
Cellini, Primaticcio, and Nicola del Abbate. In 
his enthusiasm he had cast a bronze reproduction 
of Trajan's column, and even, with something of 
Napoleon's greed, strove to remove from the walls 
of the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria 
delle Grazie, at Milan, Leonardo's famous Last 
Supper, only desisting for fear of injury to the 
fresco. 

The famous Joconde of Leonardo da Vinci 
formed the clou of the collection at Fontaine- 
bleau; to this the king added the Saint-Jean- 




Photu Bniun et Cie, 



LA JOCOXDE. 

BY LEOXAKDO DA VINCI. 

FROM THE CABINET OP FRANCOIS I. 

LOUVRE. 




Photo Braun ct Vie. 



CHARITE. 

BY ANDREA DEL SARTO. 

PAINTED FOB FRANgOIS I AT FONTAINEBLEAU. 

LOUVRE. 




Photo Alinari 



CHARLES I OF ENGLAND. 

BY ANTON VAN DYCK. 

PAINTED FOR CHARLES I. 

" CABINET DU ROY " LOUIS XIV, 

LOUVRE. 




LAURA DE DIANTI BY TITIAN. 

ORIGINALLY FORMING PART OF CHARLES I's COLLECTION. 

" CABLNEl IlU ROY " I.OLIS XIV, 

LOL^TIE. 



FOUNDATIONS OF THE MUSEUM 437 

Baptiste, found at the chateau of Cloux in the 
painter's atelier after his death, La Vierge auoo 
Bochers, and the large canvas depicting the Vir- 
gin with the Infant Jesus and Sainte-Anne, as 
well as the portrait commonly known as the Belle 
Ferronnicre, hut now thought to he Lucrezia 
Crevelli, the favourite of Ludovic le More. 

Leonardo is also thought to have painted the 
smaller canvas, which is now labelled La Belle 
Ferronniere, but in which some experts have 
thought to trace the features of Marguerite de 
Valois, the sister of Francois I. This came to 
the royal collections under Louis XIV. La Belle 
Ferronnicre was a mistress of Francois I, a 
woman of some importance, since the untimely 
death of the gallant monarch was attributed in- 
directly to her. 

To Francois I we owe also the supremely beau- 
tiful Charite, by Andrea del Sarto, painted for 
the king in 1.518. This lovely madonna is one 
of the glories of the Louvre and in harmony of 
colour and elegance of composition exemplifies 
Renaissance painting at its most detached from all 
religious inspiration. The lines of the little nude 
bodies of the children seem to flow together, so 
charming are the poses, so freely childlike their 
abandon. The head of Charity is noble; the drap- 



438 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

ery is painted with Greek feeling. In colour 
and quality this picture seems to stand apart; 
and had Francois given us nothing else this con- 
tribution would still have been great and memor- 
able. 

But from Fontainebleau came also the great 
Visitation, of Sebastiano del Piombo (Luciani), 
acquired by the king, in 1521, a work of power 
and dramatic intensity; the Belle Jardiniere of 
Raphael and by the same master the large Saint 
Michel and the Dragon and the Holy Family given 
by Lorenzo de Medicis .to Francois and the queen 
of France. Francois' collection contained the cele- 
brated portrait of the king, said to have been 
painted after a medal, by Titian, and the two more 
delightful portraits of the monarch by the contem- 
porary French painter Jehannet Clouet. The 
Nymph of Fontainebleau, a lunette in relief, was 
modelled by Benvenuto Cellini for the entrance of 
the palace, but never placed; Diane de Poitiers 
begged it of Henri II for her Chateau dAnet. It 
hangs amongst the Italian sculpture of its epoch in 
the Louvre. 

As early as the beginning of the XVIIth cen- 
tury the royal collections numbered about two 
hundred works and formed, in the Palace of Fon- 
tainebleau, a museum which was the chief source 




MYSTIO MARBIAGE OF SAINTE-CATHERINE. 
ORIGINALLY FOR.AflXG PART OF MAZARIN'S 
" CABINET DU ROY " LOUIS XIV, 
LOUVRE. 



BY CORREGGIO. 
COLLECTION. 



Titian's entombment. 

ORIGINALLY FORillNG I'ART OF 

CHARLES I'S COLLECTION. 

" CABINET DU ROY " LOUIS XIV, 

LOUVRE. 




FOUNDATIONS OF THE MUSEUM 441 

of inspiration and study for the young French 
painters of the day. 

Under Louis XIV the general collections were 
assembled and enriched by the king's enterprising 
minister, Colbert, who brought to the completion 
of the royal cabinet the energy which characterized 
all his undertakings. But this was no longer the 
labour of love that Fran9ois had commenced. 
One suspects Louis XIV of having but mediocre 
artistic judgment, if by no other proof than his 
making Le Brun supreme at Versailles. Colbert 
had the real collector's passion, as we now under- 
stand it — time, trouble, and expense were not 
spared. Ready-made collections had also already 
begun to change hands, and the minister was able 
to add, in 1661, with one gesture the splendid 
collection left by the death of cardinal JNIazarin, 
who was a real connoisseur; and ten years later he 
purchased the magnificent collection of the 
banker, Jabach, of Cologne, rich in great works 
bought at the sale of the collections of Charles I, 
of England. Colbert systematized the business of 
making Louis XIV's cabinet one of the most 
notable of all time, and posted agents in all the 
chief cities with instructions to miss nothing avail- 
able. Naturally the royal collection grew apace. 

When all was ready the pictures were carried 



442 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

to Paris and installed for the first time in the old 
palace of the Louvre. The Mercure Galant of 
December, 1681, gives an account of the affair 
from which we learn that the exhibition occupied 
seven very large and very high halls of the 
Louvre itself and four others in the " old hostel 
de Grammont," adjoining. The pictures were 
hung solid to the cornices and the Mercure notices 
sixteen by Raphael, ten by Leonardo, eight by 
Giorgione, four by Palma Vecchio, twenty-three 
by Titian, eighteen by Paolo Veronese, fourteen 
by Van Dyck, etc. An inventory enumerates 2403 
paintings. 

Louis XIV made an official visit. One can 
see him with his curled wig, his long coat, his 
silk hose, his frills and furbelows, walking grandly 
through the rooms, with that Vetat-c^est-moi ex- 
pression and the pompous air of a connoisseur. 
He seems to have made one memorable remark 
to Colbert, who accompanied him : " Otez-moi ces 
magots la " was the royal comment upon the mar- 
vellous collection of Teniers upon which his min- 
ister particularly prided himself. But Colbert 
knew better and they now form one of the chief 
boasts of the gallery. 

How England must regret the rash dispersal 
of Charles I's treasures! From his collections 




Phnlo Alinari 



PORTRAIT OF COUNT BALTHAZAR CASTIGLIOXE. BY RAPHAEL. 
ORIGINALLY FORMING PART OF MAZARIN'S COLLECTION. 
"CABINET I)U ROY" LOUIS XIV, 
LOUVRE. 




DETAIL FROM LES NOCES DE CANA 
BY PAUL VERONESE. 
MUSEE NAPOLEON, LOUVRE. 



saint-michel and the dragon. 

by raphael. 

originally forming part of 

mazarin's collection. 

'' cabinet du koy " louis xiv, 

LOUVRE. 




Photo Braun et Cie. 



FOUXDATIONS OF THE MUSEUM 445 

came to the Louvre such masterly canvases as 
the portrait of himself with his horse, by Van Dyck ; 
the Jupiter and Antiope, the Eiitomhrnent, the 
exquisite Laura de" Dianti, with Alphonse de Far- 
rare, of Titian ; the Antiope of Correggio ; the Fete 
Champetre and Holy Family, of Giorgione. 

From Mazarin's collection came Correggio's 
beautiful Mystic Marriage of Sainte-Catherine of 
Aleojandria; Raphael's portrait of the Count Bal- 
thazar Castiglione and the two tiny pictures of 
Saint-Michel and Saint-Georges with the dragons. 

Lenoir's contributions to the museum were 
mostly sculpture and one finds the rooms devoted 
to Renaissance and XVIIIth century monuments 
filled with the treasures which his intervention 
secured. 

Under the Directorate, the Consulate, and the 
First Empire the Louvre was a scene of great 
activity. Each armistice and treatj^ of peace was 
followed by the arrival in Paris of numerous 
precious objects, which, hastily installed in the 
Louvre, became the ^lusee Napoleon. The Act 
of Restitution of 1815 restored most of this val- 
uable loot to its various owners, but a catalogue 
of Xapoleon's museum has preserved the memory 
of that remarkable assemblage. Amongst the 
more noteworthv souvenirs of the aifair is 



446 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Veronese's Marriage of Cana, from the refectory 
of the Convent of the Benedictines of San Giorgio 
Maggiore, of Venice. This canvas, despite its 
enormous proportions, Napoleon had brought to 
Paris, in 1799. In 1815 on account of the difficul- 
ties and dangers of transport the Austrian repre- 
sentative consented to leave the painting at the 
Louvre and to take in its place a large canvas of 
Le Brun. 



CHAPTER XX 
THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 

In the days when the Bastille Saint- Antoine 
was a fort-bastide — built on the line of the city 
walls just to the south of the Porte Saint- Antoine, 
and surrounded by its own moat, the ^Marais was 
the favoured residence of the nobility. The 
fortress commanded the river and its approaches, 
and furnished protection to the Hotel Saint-Pol, 
to which Charles V removed the court when he 
came to the throne. 

Whilst Jean le Bon was a prisoner in England, 
his son, the dauphin, afterwards Charles V, was 
alarmed by the growing power of the Confrerie 
des Bourgeois, the municipal authorities of Paris. 
The climax was reached when their formidable 
provost, Etienne Marcel, at the head of two or 
three thousand men, wearing the colours of the 
revolt, marched to the Louvre, broke into the 
apartments of the dauphin, and in the presence of 
the prince assassinated Robert de Clermont, mar- 
shal of France, and Jean de Conflans, marshal of 
Champagne, his two favourite ministers. The 

447 



448 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

dauphin, himself, escaped merely by consenting to 
wear the red and green cap of the republican 
leader. 

The prince regent at first took flight, but re- 
turning to Paris after Etienne Marcel had been 
put to death by his order, determined to seek a 
more secure residence with the Association de la 
March acidise de VEau, which had always been de- 
voted to the king. So, forsaking the Palais and 
the Louvre, Charles now bought, near the Porte 
de Saint-Pol, the hotel of the comte d'Etampes, 
adding later to his purchase the hotel of the 
Archbishop of Sens with its gardens, and the 
smaller hotels d'Estomesnil and Pute-y-Muce and 
the estate of the abbots of Saint-Maur. When 
he came to the throne Charles V declared the 
Hotel Saint-Pol the property of the crown. It 
was a group of palaces, rather than a single build- 
ing, surrounded by high walls, which enclosed 
meadows, gardens, galleries, and courts. 

Charles VI, the son and successor of Charles V, 
occupied the Hotel Saint-Pol during the greater 
part of his life. Its gardens were shaded by 
trellises, covered with vines, which yielded annually 
a goodly supply of vin de Vhotel. After Charles 
VI became insane he amused himself by keeping 
a menagerie under the shade of the trellises, pay- 




Plioto A. Giraudon 



JKAXNE DE BOTRliOX, WIFK OF CHARLES V. 
FKOM THE CONVENT OF THE CELESTINS. 
KOW IN THE LOUVRE. 



ISABEAU DE BAVIERE. 
DETAIL FROM HER FUNERAX 
MONUMENT AT SAINT-DENIS. 
FROM A CAST OF THE ORIGINAL. 
IN THE TKOCADERO. 




Photo A. Giraudon 




THE THREF THEOLOGICAL VLRTUES OR THE THREE GRACES, 
MADE BY GERMAIN PJLOX TO HOLD THE. HEARTS OF 
HENRI II AND CATHERINE DE ilEDlCIS IN THE KGLISE 
OF THE CELESTINS. 
NOW IN THE LOUVRE 



THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 451 

ing fabulous sums for rare animals. At the 
Hotel Saint-Pol were born the king's twelve 
children, by Isabeau de Baviere; and here in later 
years, abandoned by the queen, he died, attended 
only by his mistress, Odette de Champdivers, la 
petite reine, who was faithful to him to the end, 
while the queen gave herself uj) to her passion 
for her brother-in-law, the due d'Orleans, in the 
Hotel Barbette. 

After the nmrder of her lover and the death of 
her husband, Isabeau de Baviere passed also the 
last miserable years of her life at the Hotel Saint- 
Pol — the Tournelles had become the residence of 
the reigning monarch — shut away from the eyes 
of a populace which hated her. Brantome de- 
scribes her funeral: she was carried out of the 
hotel and conveyed in a little boat on the Seine 
without pomp or ceremony, to her tomb at Saint- 
Denis, " as though she had been a simple de- 
moiselle." 

At the angle of the Rue Vieille du Temple and 
the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois stands a beautiful 
old house with an overhanging tourelle, orna- 
mented with niches and pinnacles in the Gothic 
style. Under the general restoration remains 
something of the original Hotel Barbette, this 
petit sejour of the unfaithful Queen Isabeau, in 



452 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

which the due d'Orleans dined upon the fatal night 
of his assassination. 

Etienne Barbette, master of the mint and con- 
fidential friend of Philippe le Bel, built a house 
here, in 1298, and it is his name which has survived 
its colourful history. But here, under the tenancy 
of Isabeau de Baviere, the queen and her lover 
decided all the affairs of state, for the duke was 
at this time the only rampart of fallen monarchy 
and the logical protector of the future king 
against the plots of the Duke of Burgundy. We 
have already seen how the Duke of Burgundy 
revenged himself, by the murder of his cousin. 
The scene of the tragedy was a few steps from 
the Hotel Barbette in the Rue des Francs- 
Bourgeois. 

As for the house itself it again became interest- 
ing in 1521, as the residence of the old comte de 
Breze, husband of the famous Diane de Poitiers. 
One day as Diane stood at a window, doubtless a 
window of the tourelle, Francois I riding through 
the street caught sight of her and at once fell a 
victim to her charms, an incident that launched her 
upon her career. We are told repeatedly that she 
was not beautiful, but her spell over both Fran9ois 
and his son was not less potent. 

We have seen at Saint-Denis the tomb which 



THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 453 

Louis XII raised to the memory of his grand- 
parents, the murdered due d'Orleans and his wife, 
Valentine de Milan. The tomb was saved from 
the monumental chapel which the duke built, in 
1393, in gratitude for his escape from the famous 
fire in the old hotel of Blanche de Castille during 
a masquerade, called the ballet dcs ardent s. 

The Chapelle d'Orleans formed part of the old 
convent of the Celestins which had occupied the 
Quartier Saint-Pol since 1352, when the monks of 
this order were established there under the patron- 
age of the dauphin, Charles, during the captivity 
of his father, Jean le Bon, in London. The 
Caserne des Celestins marks the site of this cele- 
brated convent, and the Boulevard Henri IV, when 
cut through in recent times, swept a wide path 
through the middle of the estate, destroying many 
associations. 

After the dauphin became Charles V he built 
the Celestins a beautiful church, whose portail 
bore statues of himself and the queen, Jeanne de 
Bourbon. These are now at Saint-Denis. The 
Celestins, then, became the special foundation of 
royalty, liberally endowed and protected by 
Charles V, Charles VI, and the due d'Orleans. 
The church was paved with sepulchral stones 
carved with the effigies of the benefactors of the 



454 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

convent, garbed in the habit of the Celestins in 
which they were dressed before receiving the last 
sacrament. The choir contained the tombs of 
Jeanne de Bourbon and of Leon de Lustigan, 
last king of Armenia — both now at Saint-Denis — 
and of Anne de Bourgogne, Duchess of Bedford 
— now at the Louvre. 

Annexed to the church was a chapel, given by 
the confederation of the ten thousand martyrs in 
the XVth century, wherein were buried the families 
of Gesvres and Beaune under magnificent monu- 
ments. Three little chapels, communicating with 
the Chapelle des Gesvres, belonged to the Roche- 
forts, the Zamets, and to Charles de Maigne, gen- 
tleman of the chamber to Henri II, with a beau- 
tiful statue by Paul Ponce, now in the Louvre. 

The more magnificent Chapelle d'Orleans rose 
attached to the Celestins and contained the assem- 
blage of sculptured monuments of which we have 
already spoken, and of which many were destroyed 
and others distributed between Saint-Denis and 
the Louvre. 

Naturally so regal a church was pillaged during 
the Revolution, but the greater sacrifice was made 
in the middle of the last century when the whole 
of the chapel was razed to make way for the 
Boulevard Henri IV. 



THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 455 

Behind the Hotel de Ville, between the river 
and the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, Paris is honey- 
combed with ancient streets, filled with historic 
souvenirs of other times. The Hotel de Ville 
itself, a modern restoration of the original, which 
was burned in the Commune of 1871, sounds a 
bit too loudly the note of the quarter. The Place 
de Greve, with its hideous historical associations, 
preceded the modernized Place de I'Hotel de 
Ville. Here, in 1473, was Jean Hardi torn to 
pieces by four horses on the accusation of having 
tried to poison Louis XI; here Nicolas de Salcede, 
sieur d'Auvillers, suffered the same fantastic 
punishment, in the presence of the king and the 
queens of the court, for having conspired against 
the life of Catherine de Medicis' youngest son, the 
due d'Anjou. Here, on May 27, 1610, was 
Ravaillac executed for the murder of Henri IV; 
and in 1757 Damiens, the fanatic who tried to kill 
Louis XV, was put to death with all the savagery 
of an ingenious people. These are but a few of 
the horrid associations of this place. 

Immediately behind the Hotel de Ville lies the 
Church of Saint-Gervais, brought into promi- 
nence by the bomb dropped upon it on the Good 
Friday of 1918, during the celebration of high 
mass. Many people were killed and the interior 



456 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

of the church was badly damaged. Though as a 
parish Saint-Gervais dates from the time of 
Childebert, the present edifice shows nothing 
earlier than the remains of a Gothic church 
erected in the Xlllth century and entirely remod- 
elled in the XVIth century. De Brosse, Marie de 
Medicis' architect, added a Greek portico in 1616. 
The interior, remarkable for its height, is consid- 
ered a fine specimen of Gothic architecture. Most 
of its treasures of painting have been carried to 
the Louvre and there is little doubt that for future 
generations Saint-Gervais will stand more promi- 
nently as the martyr church of Paris than for its 
artistic qualities. 

The church stands at the parting of the ways, 
both leading into the heart of the old Paris of 
Charles V and VI. One has only to wander at 
random through this network of narrow byways 
to become lost in the Paris of the XVth century, 
of which there remain many fragments, as well as 
a few entire houses, crumbling with decay or de- 
based by unworthy occupation, but eloquent of 
the magnificence of their time. 

The Rue de I'Hotel de Ville, which runs parallel 
to the quay of the same name, has preserved 
its provincial character. Following it through its 
file of dark dwellings from which exhale the 



THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 457 

odours of many centuries of dampness, the street 
at its base takes a short curve to the left and 
comes out, at its junction with the Rue du Figuier, 
into a small place before an ancient house, whose 
pointed tower, overhanging the street, has already 
intrigued us. This is the Hotel de Sens, once 
interwoven with the group of dwellings which 
made the royal residence of Charles VI. 

This noble house, admirable even in its decay, 
remains, with the Hotel de Cluny, one of the most 
remarkable specimens of XVth century French 
architecture. Happy are those who have seen it in 
its ruin, for restoration is in the air, and the house, 
the property of the city since 1911, is destined to 
become a museum of relics of Jeanne d'Arc. 

The original house served as a Paris residence 
for the archbishops of Sens, from which mediaeval 
city Paris, as a simple bishopric, depended until 
1622. Its importance therefore was considerable 
when Jean le Bon, returning from his captivity 
in England, resided here for a time as guest of 
the archbishop. Charles V bought the house from 
Guillaume de Melun and it became the chief of 
the buildings which constituted the Hotel Saint- 
Pol. When the latter was abandoned for the 
Tournelles, under Charles VII, the estate which 
had belonged to the archbishops was restored to 



458 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

them. The present building goes back to Tristan 
de Salazar, archbishop of Sens, who erected it 
from 1474 to 1519, and is about contemporary 
with the Hotel de Cluny, the only other specimen 
in Paris of the domestic architecture of this date. 

This old hotel has known all the grandeurs, the 
vicissitudes, the decadence of the quarter itself. 
Inhabited by the clergy — archbishops, bishops, car- 
dinals — by royalty, there is also a tradition that 
it offered its hospitality to Jeanne d'Arc when she 
entered Paris victorious. Under Henri IV it was 
for a short time famous as the residence of his 
divorced wife. Marguerite de Valois — la reine 
Margot — who brought scandal to its threshold, for 
one day returning from mass at the Celestins, her 
page and favourite, Julien, was shot dead at the 
door of her carriage, by her jealous former lover, 
Vermond. The queen swore that she would 
neither eat nor drink until his death was avenged, 
and she had the assassin beheaded in her presence 
two days later in the place before the hotel. It 
was in this house that the former queen slept in a 
bed with black satin sheets to show off the white- 
ness of her skin. 

After Paris was accorded an archbishop the 
Hotel de Sens was deserted by its owners, who, 
however, were not dispossessed until the Revolu- 




HoTEI. DE SEXS, XVTII CENTURY- 



THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 4G1 

tionists took possession of the property. Its de- 
cline was then rapid. For a time it served as a 
diligence office, and under the Directoire the fa- 
mous " Courrier de Lyon " is said to have started 
from its court. Planted in the fa9ade is a ball 
from the revolution of 1830. Little by little 
speculators robbed it of its garden, its chapel, and 
in 1891 the house was despoiled of its chimney- 
pieces and carved woodwork, sold to collectors; 
but the square dungeon with its tower at the back 
of the court and the winding stair of the tourelle 
remain intact. 

The Hotel Saint-Pol yielded as royal residence 
to the Tournelles, which came to the crown during 
the reign of Charles VI. It was a palace of in- 
numerable turrets, first built by Pierre d'Orge- 
mont, chancellor of France, in 1380. His son, 
bishop of Paris, sold it to the due de Berry, uncle 
of Charles VI, from whom it passed to his nephew 
the due d'Orleans, and from him to the king. 
The duke of Bedford, regent of France after the 
death of Henry V, lived at the Tournelles. 
Charles VII was the first monarch to adopt 
the Tournelles as a residence and after him it was 
occupied on occasions by Louis XI, Charles VIII, 
Louis XII, and Franc^ois I. Henri II found the 
palace mesquiv, insaluhre, and nauseahond and 



462 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

made only short stops there during tournaments 
held in the park which surrounded the chateau, on 
the site of the present Place des Vosges. The Rue 
du Pare Royal marks one of the boundaries of 
this park. 

It was in such a tournament, held in honour of 
the marriage of Elisabeth of France with Philip II 
of Spain, that Henri II, tilting with the Earl 
of Montgomery, was fatally wounded. The king 
was hastily carried to the Tournelles, where he 
expired ten days later, and Catherine de Medicis 
conceiving a superstitious horror of the place ob- 
tamed from her son, Charles IX, authority to 
throw it down. The Rue des Tournelles occupies 
the line of the fa9ade of the palace, the Place des 
Vosges marks the site of the royal garden. 

The Place des Vosges, in its present form, dates 
from Henri IV, who determined to make the 
Marais the handsomest quarter of Paris and the 
Place Royale (Place des Vosges) the brilliant 
centre from which wide streets radiating in all 
directions should bear the names of all the prov- 
inces of France — the Rues Saintonge, de Beam, 
de Bretagne are survivals of the original intention. 
The plans adopted for the place were designed by 
the king's favourite architect, Jacques-Androuet 
du Cerceau and the king built the side towards 



THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 463 

the Rue Saint-Antoine at his own expense and then 
ceded plots of ground on the other sides of the 
square to his courtiers, on condition that thej^ 
erect houses at once according to the accepted 
plan, in order that the whole enclosure should he 
uniform. Thirty-six pavilions surrounded the 
square. 

Four new streets were opened leading to the 
j)lace and the king erected the two central pa- 
vilions on the south and north, which were called 
the Pavilion du Roi and the Pavilion de la Reine. 
The king came daily while in Paris to direct and 
speed-up the work and during his absences at 
Fontainebleau he wrote constantly to Sully beg- 
ging him to do the same. " Je vous recommande 
la Place Roifale'' was his admonition, added to 
letters to his minister on other subjects. 

Henri meant to live in the Pavilion du Roi, but 
the square was unfinished at the time of his death 
and it w\as not until the commencement of the 
reign of Louis XIII that the Place Royale was 
inaugurated. The occasion was made brilliant as 
part of the festivities attending the marriage of 
the young king's sister, Elisabeth, with the Infant 
of Spain. This fete established the favour of the 
l^lace with the aristocracy and it remained a 
centre of fashion until the commercial world in- 



464 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

vaded it at the end of the XVI Ith century. 
Though under Louis XIII duelling was for- 
bidden, the Place Royale was a favourite ren- 
dezvous for duellists, and the balconies and 
windows of the square used to be filled with 
spectators, which gave such affairs almost the pub- 
licity of gladiatorial combats. 

As a warning to duellists Richelieu raised in the 
centre of the square an equestrian statue of the 
king. It was destroyed by the Revolutionists, 
who melted the bronze into cannons, and the pres- 
ent statue, by Dupaty and Cortot, was erected in 
1825. It presides over desolation, solitude, 
abandon. 

The setting is intact — strangely unchanged and 
more perfect in its preservation than its contem- 
porary, the Place Dauphine, of which we have 
spoken. But every vestige of former splendour has 
vanished. Where once was all gaiety, life, anima- 
tion ; where sedan chairs and carriages deposited the 
beauties of the court of a gallant monarch, where 
elegant cavaliers pirouetted under the eyes of their 
divinities, where nobles fought and played, where 
was the rendezvous of fashion, where court and pub- 
lic found their choicest distractions and pleasures, 
is now a vast emptiness pervaded by a touching 
melancholy. We seem far from Paris in this 




Photo Moreau Frires 



Pr.ACE DES VOSGES: STATUE OF I.OUIS XIII. 




Photo A. Giraudon 



PLACE UES VOSGES: THE ARCADE. 




HOTEL SULLY. 



Photo Monumcntfi Historiques 

DETAIL FROM PKIXCIPAL FACADE OF THE COURT. 



THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 467 

complete picture of a dead past, this empty 
theatre of departed glories. In the poetic beauty 
of its decline the Place des Vosges is like some 
exquisite discarded mistress. It has something of 
the tragedy of old Edinburgh. 

The vogue of the Place Royale persisted under 
Louis XIV; then the bemi monde emigrated to 
the vicinity of the Tuileries, or the Palais Royal, 
while many of the aristocracy had already crossed 
the river to the faubourg Saint-Germain. The 
cannons of the Bastille drove out the remaining 
faithful — shops were shut up and homes aban- 
doned. The Place Royale became the " Place de 
rindivisibilite " and an armory was installed. 
The present name is in honour of the first depart- 
ment of France to forward patriot-contributions 
to Paris. 

The disposition of the place is fine. The brick 
houses with their wide, white markings in stone, 
their picturesque, high-pitched, slate roofs, de- 
scribe a large square upon which open one hun- 
dred and forty-four arcades; long galleries are 
reserved to promenaders; and four wide roads to 
horsemen and carriages. In the centre the garden 
was formerly enclosed by a handsome grill dating 
from Louis XIV. This grill, torn out for no ap- 
parent reason, is replaced by an inferior railing, 



468 A LOITERER IN PARTS 

but a fragment of it encloses the magnificent 
hotel of cardinal Mazarin in the Rue Vivienne. 
(Now part of the Bibliotheque Nationale.) 

Madame de Sevigne was born in No. 1 Place 
Royale; Richelieu lived in No. 21. Under Louis- 
Phihppe artists and men of letters replaced the 
gra7ids seigneurs. Rachel, the tragedienne, died in 
No. 13; and, in 1832, Victor Hugo occupied an 
apartment in No. 6, the former dwelling of 
Marion Delorme, which has now become a na- 
tional museum of the effects of the poet. 

Reentering the Marais by the picturesque Rue 
Francois Miron, on the left hand of Saint-Gervais, 
we find again some ancient dwellings. The Hotel 
de Beauvais (No. 62) is readily distinguishable 
for its agreeable facade with balconies and its 
imposing entrance leading into a fine court. The 
house was built about the middle of the XVIIth 
century for Pierre de Beauvais, whose wife, Cath- 
erine Bellier, was first lady in waiting to Anne of 
Austria. In the decorations of the court the 
heads of rams (belie?') which alternate with those 
of lions are in allusion to the mistress of the house. 
The queen so favoured her that it used to be said 
that her house was built with stones from the 
Louvre. There is a rich vestibule with Doric 
columns sustaining trophies; an oval court with 



THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 469 

pilasters and masks; a stairway with Corinthian 
columns, reliefs, and a rich balustrade leading to 
the chief rooms on the first floor. From one of 
these rooms, on August 26, 1660, Anne of Austria 
and Henrietta Maria, of England, watched the 
triumphal entry of Louis XIV and Marie- 
Therese into the capital. 

The Rue Francois Miron was formerly part of 
the Rue Saint-Antoine, into which it leads, at the 
widening of the thoroughfare where the modern 
Rue de Rivoli starts. We are now in the heart of 
the INIarais and seem far from Paris. Two 
churches, dating from Louis XIII, give the note 
of antiquity and rise above the general squalour 
into which the neighbourhood has fallen. That 
nearest the Rue Fran9ois Miron is the Church of 
Saint Paul and Saint Louis, built for Louis XIII, 
in 1627-41, by Fran9ois Derand, upon the site 
of a Jesuit church, built in 1580, in which 
Ravaillac, according to his own testimony, was 
instructed by the Jesuit dAubigne to murder 
Henri IV. The site of the church was first occu- 
pied by the hotel of the cardinal de Bourbon. 

The present church imitates the Italian style 
of the XVIth century ; it is cruciform and its hand- 
some dome is one of the earliest erected in Paris. 
Richelieu added the portal, from designs by the 



470 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Jesuit, Marcel Ange, and he celebrated the first 
mass. Louis XIII made a liberal endowment 
and the church, before its treasures were despoiled 
and dispersed by the Revolution, contained many 
interesting monuments. The sculptor, Sarazin, 
who carried on the traditions of Germain Pilon, 
made for it the statues of the grand Conde and 
his father, Henri de Bourbon; while Pilon's 
statue of the cruel chancellor, Rene de Birague, 
(now in the Louvre) was one of the more famous 
monuments. Sarazin made for the church a 
golden urn, supported by silver angels, to contain 
the heart of Louis XIII, and the heart of Louis 
XIV was brought here, in 1715, enclosed in a case 
designed by Coustou Jeune. The pulpit was 
given by Gaston de France, brother of the king. 
The church still retains a few of its treasures, 
amongst which the most famous is the Christ in 
the Garden of Olives by Eugene Delacroix. There 
is a Madonna in marble by Germain Pilon, a 
replica of the terra-cotta from the Sainte-Chapelle, 
now in the Louvre. The crucifix in the sacristy 
comes from the old chapel of the Bastille and the 
shells which serve as vessels for the holy water 
were given by Victor Hugo when his first child 
was baptised. 

The Temple Sainte-Marie, which carries the 



THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 471 

picturesqueness of the street well down towards 
the Place de la Bastille, was built as the Church 
of the Visitation, by Francois Mansart, in 1632. 
In the convent of the Visitandines Louise de la 
Fayette, the virtuous and beautiful friend of 
Louis XIII, preferring a life of seclusion to the 
scandals and temptations of the court, took the 
veil in 1637, to escape from the insults of 
Richelieu and the queen, who feared her influence. 
She became superior of the convent under the 
name Mere Angelique. Louis saw her there and 
held a long conversation with her through the 
grill of the parloir, and it was during this con- 
versation that she persuaded him to consecrate 
the kingdom to the Virgin. We have seen, in the 
choir of Notre-Dame, the statue of Louis XIII 
offering his crown and sceptre to the Virgin, and 
we know that his son, Louis XIV, executed the 
vow which his father died too soon to accomplish. 
LTpon the site of this church stood formerly the 
Hotel de Boissy, in which died Quelus, the favour- 
ite of Henri III, who had been mortally wounded 
in the great duel of April 27, 1578. For thirty- 
three days Henri watched at the bedside of his 
dying " mignon," offering one hundred thousand 
francs to the surgeon who could save the life of 
one to whom he bore une merveilleuse amitic. 



472 A LOITERER IX PARIS 

Quelus died calling upon the king and it was 
Henri himself who cut his long chestnut locks 
and took from his ears the earrings he had given 
him. 

Close by the Church of the Visitation is the 
Hotel de Mayenne, or d'Ormesson, or du Petit- 
]Musc, a handsome house built by Du Cerceau for 
the due de Mayenne. 

But of all the ancient hotels which still remain 
of those which clustered around the neighbour- 
hood of the Place Royale the most interesting is 
that built by Sully, the minister who superin- 
tended its erection. Du Cerceau was again the 
architect, building upon part of the site of the 
old Tournelles this handsome residence for Maxi- 
milian de Bethune, due de Sully, who had made 
a fortune in the service of Henri IV. 

The rich facade of the hotel still looks down 
upon the rue Saint-Antoine, the lower part de- 
stroyed by commercial disfigurement, but the 
upper stories still full of character. There are two 
massive corner pavilions with the high-pitched 
Renaissance roof, connected by a simpler face of 
which the upper part is obviously modern, but 
under which is the original imposing entrance to 
the stately court. This court is richly sculptured 
with reliefs of the four Seasons, in the Goujon 



THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 473 

style, with armour, with masques and foliage 
above the windows. Two sphynxes guard the stone 
steps which lead into the central building at the 
back and the whole court is opulent in carved 
stonework of the period. Inside a noble salon 
shows the proportions of the apartments and here 
and there a trace of the monogram of Sully. 
Another room preserves its ancient mosaic pave- 
ment. 



CHAPTER XXI 
CARNAVALET 

Directly before the Church of Saint Paul and 
Saint Louis the Rue de Sevigne leads through to 
the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois where at the angle 
of the two streets stands the chief treasure of the 
Marais, the famous house of Madame de Sevigne, 
the Hotel Carnavalet. The perfection of the type 
of private dwellings, of which the Hotel de Sully 
is a later and more ostentatious development, the 
Hotel Carnavalet, having been taken early by the 
city for the installation of its municipal museum, 
has escaped all the misfortunes of degenerating 
private occupation and ownership. Lodged in its 
own chief exhibit, the museum is one of the most 
thrilling which Paris offers. It deals with the 
history of the city, especially in the parts which 
the average visitor knows best — the Revolution 
and Napoleon. It has all the charm of the sou- 
venir of that delightful letter writer, its most fa- 
mous occupant. 

The fame of Carnavalet covers many genera- 
tions. The original part of the hotel, which had 



CARNAVALET 475 

been largely added to accommodate the growing 
collections without disturbing the effect of the 
authentic portion, is contemporary with the fa- 
mous fa9ade of the court of the Louvre, upon 
which we have dwelt at such length, and it also 
presents the work of the same architect and 
sculptor. Begun by Pierre Lescot and Jean 
Goujon, in 1544, it was completed when two years 
later these two were called to the Louvre, by Jean 
Bullant assisted by several students of Goujon, 
who did not want to abandon entirely its sculp- 
tures. 

The house has had many occupants. It was 
built for Jacques des Ligneris, president of the 
parliament of Paris and representative of France 
in the Council of Trente. The next important 
owner was the widow of Fran9ois de Kernevenoy, 
a grand seigneur of Brittany, first equerry to 
Henri II and preceptor of the due d'Anjou, later 
Henri III. At the court the rude Brittany 
" Kernevenoy " became " Carnavalet," the name 
which above all others has survived as the title of 
the property. 

The original house, as one can readily see, 
consisted of a square of buildings surrounding a 
small open court. At the time of its first owners 
it comprised a main structure whose handsome 



476 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

fa9ade with reliefs, if not by Goujon himself, at 
least of his school, faces us as we stand at the 
grill under the archway of the entrance. The 
wings were of one story only and the court was 
closed across the front by a facade of which the 
feature was a sort of triumphal arch, embellished 
with sculptures by Goujon. 

Madame Carnavalet died at a great age, in 
1608, and her successor, Florent d'Argouges, 
treasurer of Marie de Medicis, made the first 
changes in the house, building as it is thought the 
upper stories of the wings. In 1654 under another 
occupant Fran9ois Mansart entirely transformed 
the hotel, respecting, however, in the main, the 
work of Lescot and Goujon. 

Standing in the old court of the hotel, the main 
facade is decorated by four large reliefs of the 
Seasons, each accompanied by its appropriate 
sign of the zodiac— Spring with the ram. Summer 
with the crab, Autumn with the scales, and Winter 
with the goat. Except for the Ceres, which is 
much the most lovely, these reliefs are too evi- 
dently inferior to the nymphs of the Fountain of 
the Innocents to be from the same chisel, and 
three of them were probably executed by another 
hand, from Goujon's design. Of the sides or 
wings of the court, the lower floor only dates from 




Plinto Ti. Pnmard 



CABNAVALET: COURT OF HOXOTTR. 




Photo L. Pamard 



CAKNAVALET: STATUE OF LOUIS XIV. BY COYZEVOX. 
FORMERLY AT THE HOTEL DE VILLE. 



LION BY JEAN GOUJOX. 
FROM THE FACADE OF THE 
HOTEL CARXAVALET. 




CARNAVALET 479 

the Renaissance and the handsome heads or masks, 
fauns and satyrs, of the keystones of the arches 
are attributed to Paul Ponce. 

For the decoration of the new facades INIansart 
employed two sculptors of unequal talent. The 
more than mediocre reliefs of the upper storey of 
the right wing, representing Juno, Hebe, Diana, 
and Flora, with their attributes, are by an unknown 
sculptor. The reliefs on the opposite side, repre- 
senting the four elements — Earth, Water, Air, and 
Fire — surmounted by their attributes, are thought 
to be the work of Gerard van Obstal, a Flemish 
sculptor brought to Paris by cardinal Richelieu 
to work upon the Louvre. 

Above the entrance door to the main stairway 
are beautiful reliefs of Jean Goujon representing 
two geniuses reclining and holding lighted torches, 
symbolical of the vigilance of Justice even when 
she seems to repose. Upon the arch of the porte- 
cochere are admirable figures of Jean Goujon in 
his best manner. The figure of the keystone, 
Authority standing upon a globe, is supported by 
two figures of Fame lying on the extrados of the 
arch, holding palms and laurels. The two sub- 
missive lions which now form part of the decora- 
tion of the street facade were originally placed 
over the two little side doors of the court and 



480 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

completed the symbolism of this ensemble, which 
recalls that this hotel was built for a president 
of parliament. 

In the centre of the court is the bronze statue 
of Louis XIV, by Antoine Coyzevox, formerly 
at the Hotel de Ville. The king is represented 
standing, wearing the Roman costume of a war- 
rior. On the pedestal are two reliefs by the same 
sculptor; to the right France annihilating heresy, 
a souvenir of the revocation of the Edict of 
Nantes ; to the left Royal Munificence distributing 
food to the starving poor, in souvenir of the or- 
ganized charity after the terrible famine of 1662. 

This statue was erected in the court of the 
Hotel de Ville on July 14, 1689, a century to the 
day before the storming of the Bastille. It com- 
memorated the reconciliation of Louis XIV with 
the city of Paris, after the troubles of the Fronde, 
which the king was long in pardoning, and since 
which he had never been willing to appear at the 
Hotel de Ville. Finally, on January 30, 1687, 
he accepted an invitation to be present there at a 
festin given in his honour. Upon entering the 
court he saw the marble statue of Gilles Guerin, 
erected in 1654, which represented the king as a 
Roman trampling under foot the rebel Parisian. 
" Take away that figure," said Louis, " it is no 



CARNAVALET 481 

longer in season." The same night it was re- 
moved and now decorates the interior court of the 
chateau of Chantilly. 

In memory of this solemn hanquet Coyzevox 
was asked to make the statue erected two years 
after. Somehow it escaped the Revokitionary 
storm and before 1871 was again in the court of 
the Hotel de Yille and in 1890 was transported 
to its present place at Carnavalet. 

The fa9ade of the building on the Rue de 
Sevigne dates from the Mansart constructions in 
the XVIIth century, but preserves the sculptures 
of the original entrance, attributed to Jean Goujon 
and Germain Pilon. To the right and left of the 
door are the two square reliefs, first placed inside 
the court, of the subdued lions against a back- 
ground of war trophies. These reliefs are by 
Goujon, and are thought to have been inspired 
by a famous morceau in the Grand' Salle of the 
Palais. " On the door of the Chamhre Boree, 
where parliament sat," says Corrozet, " there was 
a large, gilded lion, having the head lowered to 
the ground and the tail between his legs, signify- 
ing that every person, of whatever rank in the 
realm, should obey and humble himself under the 
laws and judgment of the court." The lion of 
the Palais gave the sculptor the motif for those 



482 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

which he carved for the hotel of Ligneris, the 
president of parliament. 

Opening upon the garden of the museum, in the 
Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, is an arch, called the 
Arc de Nazareth, which once traversed a street 
of that name in the Cite^ near the Palais de Jus- 
tice, and established a means of communication 
between the old Chambre des Comptes and its 
archives. When the Palais de Justice was ex- 
tended this street was suj^pressed and its arch 
taken down and transported stone for stone to 
Carnavalet. 

The fragment undoubtedly dates from the time 
of Henri II for we see upon the eight consoles sup- 
porting the arch and its archivolts, the monogram 
and device of this king several times repeated 
amongst tlie heads of satyrs and women. The 
excellence of its style and the vigour of its sculp- 
ture also would indicate that Goujon, if not 
Lescot, worked upon it, or that it is at least of 
their epoch. The grill which closes the arch is 
part of the restoration. 

We find the same device and monogram, com- 
monly accepted as a direct and official allusion to 
the amours of Henri II and Diane de Poitiers, 
on the Louvre, at Fontainebleau, in the chapel of 
the chateau at Vincennes, in the church of Gous- 



CARNAVALET 483 

sainville, etc., surmounted by the royal crown. 
We know that Catherine de INIedicis was forced 
to accept the presence of her powerful rival even 
in the menage and so with that indomitable will 
which enabled her to endure humiliation without 
appearing to accept it, she did her utmost to live 
down the scandal by accepting the device of the 
monogram and the crescent as her own. After 
the death of Henri II, Catherine continued piously 
to use the symbol, marking, however, distinctly the 
ends of the crescent to form the letter C, as we 
see it engraved on the tombs at Saint-Denis and 
on the astronomical colunm, which she had built 
during her widowhood and w^hich still stands 
against the old Halle au Ble (now the Bourse 
du Commerce). 

We have been able to touch but lightly upon 
the treasures of the jNIarais, than which no quarter 
in Paris is more rich in historic relics. Carnavalet 
is in many respects its chief jewel as it is the last 
monument of civil architecture of the Renaissance 
which modern Paris offers to the admiration of 
artists. Of its many occupants it is Madame de 
Sevigne who has left the most potent souvenir 
of her passage. She adored Carnavalet and lived 
there nearly nineteen years, from 1677 to 1696, 
up to within a short time of her death. She did 



484 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

not, however, die in the house, but at the Chateau 
de Grignan. 

The property was seized by the state under the 
Revolution and in 1866 Paris bought it for its 
historieal museum. At this time the name of 
the street which passes before the house was 
changed from the Rue Culture Sainte-Catherine to 
Rue Sevigne, which adds nothing to the glory of 
the letter writer, but by which Paris loses the last 
trace of an old monastery which existed here be- 
fore the Xlllth century. 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE LUXEMBOURG: MARIE DE 
MEDICIS 

The Paliice of the Luxeniboiirg, whose majestic 
facade forms the imposing vista of the broad Rue 
de Tournon, is the ancient residence of Marie de 
INIedicis, the powerful widow of Henri IV, the 
first monarch of the House of Bourbon. 

When Marie decided to l)uihl a palace without 
the walls of Philippe Auguste, upon a slope of the 
plateau of Sainte-Genevieve, she followed the 
example which half a century before her com- 
patriot and relative, Catherine de ^Nledicis, had set 
when she replaced her old residence, the Tour- 
nelles, by the new palace of the Tuileries, situated 
outside the fortified walls of Charles V. 

The Iniildings of the Tuileries though not yet 
finished promised a sumptuous dwelling when 
IVIarie de Medicis became regent, but the haughty 
widow of Henri IV, though she found herself in- 
conveniently lodged in the I^ouvre, felt no interest 
in terminating the work on the Tuileries, and 
would not, in fine, occupy a palace commenced by 



486 A LOITERER IX PARIS 

another. The royal habitation which she visualized 
must be her very own. 

Daughter of a grand-duke of Tuscany and of 
an archduchess of Austria, niece of a pope, a 
superb egoism was her natural heritage, as it was 
also the dominant note of the Italian Renaissance, 
of which Marie de Medicis was preeminently a 
product. Furthermore despotic tendencies in her 
character were fostered and developed by her early 
widowhood, which left her, at thirty-seven years 
of age, regent and sole ruler of France. 

At the time of his father's death Louis XIII 
was a lad of nine years, and his mother, while 
enjoying to the full the power of the regency, 
looked forward none the less with reluctance to 
the time when she would be forced to relinquish 
the reins of government to the boy, whom she 
despised as an ineffectual rival, and upon whom 
she bestowed little of a mother's tenderness. 

The position of dowager queen, to which the 
approaching majority of her son would soon rele- 
gate her, ^larie de Medicis found distasteful and 
humiliating. She sought to ameliorate its horrors 
by the construction of a vast private palace, a 
monument to her name and race, an expression 
of her own vital personality, to which she might 
retire, nominallv, when the time came, in consid- 




Photo X 



THE PALAIS DU LUXEMBOURG. MARIE DE MEDICIS 
SALOMON DE BROSSE, ARCHITECT. 




MARRIAGE OP HENRI IV AND 
MARIE DE MEDICIS. BY RUBENS. 
DECORATION FOR THE PALAIS 
DU LUXEMBOURG. 
NOW IN THE LOUVRE. 




Photo Alinari 



HENRI IV CONFIDES THE KINGDOM 
TO MARIE DE MEDICIS. 
DECORATION FOR THE PALAIS 
DU LUXEMBOURG. 
NOW IN THE LOUVRE. 




DETAIL FROM THE CROWNING OF 

MARIE DE MEDICIS. 

BY RUBENS. 

DECORATION FOR THE PALAIS 

DU LUXEMBOURG. 

L0U\TIE. 



Photo Alinari 




FONTAINE DE M EDI CIS. 
BY DE' BROSSE 
T.UXEMBOrRG GARDEN 




Photo X 



DETAIL. FONTAINE DE L'OBSLKVAi ulllE, 
LUXEMBOURG GARDEN. 
BY CARPEAUX. 



FONTAINE DE L'OBSERVATOIRE. 
BY CARPEAUX. 
LUXEMBOURG GARDEN. 




Photo E. FiorelU 



THE LUXEMBOURG 491 

erable splendour and without sacrificing appear- 
ances or yielding more than the letter of her 
supremacy. 

Renouncing, therefore, the two large residences 
of the rive droite, ^larie de Medicis selected the 
calm and spacious faubourg Saint-Germain as the 
site of her palace. She purchased, in 1612, the 
estate of Francois de Luxembourg, due de Piney, 
increasing the property during the following year 
by a number of acquisitions and exchanges. At 
last, in 1615, having cleared the united properties 
of all the existing buildings, the palace was begun. 

Salomon de Brosse was the architect. History 
is doubtful as to his identity, his origin, and his 
birth. He is styled both nephew and student of 
Du Cerceau, as both son and brother of Jean de 
Brosse, architect to Marguerite de Valois. At the 
time of which we speak he had done none of his 
great work — the portail of Saint-Gervais, the 
aqueduct of Arceuil, the temple of Charenton, 
the Salle des Pas Perdus of the Palais, the chateaux 
of JVIonceaux and of Coulommiers are all posterior 
to the Medicis palace by several years. He was 
a Huguenot, yet he inspired Marie de Medicis, 
who was a fervent Catholic, with absolute confi- 
dence in his ability. 

The palace was commenced in 1615 and finished 



492 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

in 1620. The plan is based upon a study of the 
Pitti Palace, in Florence, Marie de Medicis' birth- 
place, to which the palace bears indeed a certain 
resemblance. De Brosse was too talented a man 
to follow blindly his distinguished model; he 
adapted its general physiognomy, subordinating it 
to the current French traditions, introducing the 
long galleries and high corner pavilions, unknown 
to Italy, but demanded by the French climate. It 
was the queen's idea that her palace should be 
reminiscent of the Florentine masterpiece, and de 
Brosse succeeded so well that his plan found uni- 
versal favour. 

In its original form the general mass of the 
structure formed a parallelogram of almost exact 
symmetry. The architectural decoration of the 
principal fa9ade, on the Rue de Vaugirard, and 
in the grand court, was practically what one sees 
to-day. But the sides of the palace were length- 
ened in 1836-40 by the addition of a third section 
which pushed the facade towards the garden out 
a considerable distance. This alteration was the 
most important of the many changes made in the 
original plan and provided the necessary space for 
the housing of the senate chamber. 

The principal entrance to the palace was 
through a court of honour built within the present 



THE LUXEMBOURG 493 

couit, raised about three feet above the main court 
and reached by a row of semi-circular steps. 
Three doors opened from this court of honour 
above which were placed busts of Henri IV, 
Marie de Medicis, and Louis XIII. The original 
stairway of honour was within these doors, where 
now stands the colonnade. Within, the ground 
floor was comj^osed of great halls and vaulted 
chambers, reserved for the different functions of 
the guard. 

The first floor contained the reception and cere- 
monial apartments and the living rooms of the 
queen. These faced the western exposure and 
communicated with the long, west gallery, a splen- 
'did room with windows on the garden and on the 
court, designed to hold the decorations by Rubens, 
now in the Louvre. 

The magnificence of the gardens corresponded 
to that of the palace. The parterre was originally 
larger but not so deep as now; it was bordered on 
each side by flat bands of flowers and enclosed 
within a double wall. The terraces followed the 
mode of the day and were planted with yew and 
box trees cut into bizarre shapes. 

The fountains were fed by abundant waters 
from the springs of Rongis carried through the 
village of Arceuil, where had been found the re- 



494 A LOITERER IX PARIS 

mains of the Roman aqueduct which transported 
the waters for the baths of the Palais des Thermes. 
The first stone in its reconstruction was laid by 
the queen regent and Louis XIII in 1613. It was 
finished in 1624 and proved a blessing to the city, 
for the demands of the palace and gardens were 
amply satisfied with but a third of the supply of 
water and the remainder was turned over to pub- 
lic use. 

Sauval described the parterre as the largest and 
most magnificent of Europe, and John Evelyn, 
writing in 1644, says: " The parterre is indeed of 
box, but so rarely design'd and accurately kept 
cut, that the embroidery makes a wonderful effect 
to the lodgings which front it. 'Tis divided into 
four squares, and as many circular knots, having 
in ye centre a noble basin of marble neere thirty 
feet in diameter, in which a triton of brasse holds 
a dolphine that casts a girandola of water neere 
thirty foote high, playing perpetually, the water 
being convey 'd from Arceuil by an aqueduct of 
stone, built after ye old Roman magnificence." 

Marie de Medicis occupied her palace during a 
tempestuous period following the young king's 
accession to the throne. Devoured by love of 
power, she was incapable of directing anything 
alone and obeyed blindly the will of her favourites, 



THE LUXEMBOURG 495 

Concini and Eleanore Galigai, his wife, who had 
accompanied her to France. Directed by these 
two the queen exerted her fitful influence, worked 
her stubborn will, now through the weakness of 
the king, now through her mouthpiece, Richelieu, 
whose power at first was of her making and whom 
she regarded as her creation and tool. 

Desiring to have her coadjutor at hand the 
queen gave him a portion of her land upon which 
to erect a house, adjacent to her own. This was 
the Hotel du Petit Luxembourg and here Riclielieu 
resided until the Palais Royal was built. One can 
measure his growth by these buildings alone. 
When he had attained the dignity of the latter he 
repaid the generosity of the queen mother by 
abandoning his estate to his niece, the duchesse 
d'Aiguillon, whom !Marie de jNIedicis bitterly de- 
tested and desired to have banished from the court. 
The Petit Luxembourg is now the official resi- 
dence of the president of the senate. 

INIeanwhile in the miast of everything the queen 
became embroiled in political quarrels and court 
jealousies. Her violent and dominating nature 
tended to push all things to excess, both friend- 
ships and hatreds. She excited against herself, 
and her favourite Concini, the enmity of the court, 
and after many painful scenes Richelieu, who was 



496 A LOITERER IX PARIS 

now hand in glove with the king, had her banished 
from Paris. 

The chateau of Elois was the scene of her cap- 
tivity from 1617 to 1620, and her escape forms 
one of the subjects of the series of panels which 
Rubens j^ainted for the palace. Balls, fetes, and 
a round of gaieties followed her return and cele- 
brated her restoration to favour and power. 
Marie, in the intoxication of the moment, thought 
her fortunes assured forever, and abandoned her- 
self once again to the beautification of her palace, 
calling to Paris the greatest painter of the day, 
then in the height of his ^^ower and renown. 

The fame of Rubens, at this time, filled the ears 
of the civilized world. He was in demand at all 
the courts of Europe as ambassador as well as 
painter. His familiarity with diplomatic circles 
rendered the Flemish painter eminently the artist 
to cope with the difficult task which Marie de 
Medicis' vanity imposed upon him. It was indeed 
a delicate matter to satisfy the colossal conceit of 
the queen without incurring the displeasure of the 
king and of Gaston d'Orleans, to say nothing of 
that of the more formidable Richelieu. 

Rubens chose the allegorical style of subject, 
then in vogue, as the most neutral mode of expres- 
sion, as well as that best adapted to the purpose 



THE LUXEMBOURG 497 

of decoration. He remained in Paris, on his first 
visit to the court, about a month, planning the 
work with the queen and familiarising himself 
with the political situation and the tempers of his 
clients. The preliminary sketches were finished 
within about two months after his departure, and 
in May, 1622, were submitted to the queen to- 
gether with a general plan of the west gallery. 

All of his compositions were approved with the 
exception of one which depicted the queen being 
sent into exile at Blois, conducted by Rage, 
Calumny, and Hate, and portraits of the queen's 
parents, the Grand-Duke Francis of Tuscany and 
Johanna of Austria, were substituted for this can- 
vas. These sketches, to the artist much more 
valuable and interesting than the finished decora- 
tions, are preserved in the Alte Pinakothek, at 
Munich. 

One year later Rubens again visited Paris, 
bringing with him nine finished canvases. The 
queen, who was at Fontainebleau, came up to 
Paris expressly to see them and was delighted. 
On his return to Antwerp Rubens continued the 
work with great rapidity, partly because he must 
have seen the unstable position of Marie de 
Medicis, and have been anxious to deliver the 
work, for which the recompense was a considera- 



498 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

tion, and partly also to accomplish its installation 
in time for the wedding of Henriette de France 
with Charles I, of England. 

He brought the whole series to Paris in January, 
1625, and installed himself in the east gallery 
of the palace, which, having the same exposure 
and arrangement as the room for which they were 
intended, served as the best of studios for the pur- 
pose. Here he put the final touches to the can- 
vases, and here he painted the coronation of the 
queen, by the cardinal de Joyeuse, at Saint-Denis, 
for which the queen and notables of the court, 
figuring in the composition, posed, and here he 
made the queen's own portrait, as Eellona. 

Finally, on May 1, 1625, all was in place and 
the king, the queen mother, and the court gave it 
an enthusiastic approval. The west gallery, as 
has been said, was lighted by windows on both 
sides and the pictures occupied the piers between 
the windows and at the ends of the room. At one 
end was the portrait of the queen in the character 
of Bellona, the goddess of war, placed over a 
monumental chimney-piece. This portrait was 
flanked by portraits of the grand-duke and grand- 
duchess of Tuscany, in spaces above the two doors. 
The ceiling was richly ornamented by caissons and 



THE LUXEMBOURG 499 

paintings of the twelve signs of the zodiac, by 
Jacques Jordaens, Rubens' pupil and friend. 

It has become fashionable to decry this pro- 
digious work of the Flemish painter, as not only 
inferior in quality to his great achievements, but 
as the mere hasty output of his school. So great 
a genius as Rubens rides easily over this unmerited 
criticism and the canvases themselves show too 
much mastery of composition, too much fluency 
of painting, too much joy of colour to have been 
done by apprentices, however clever. The panels 
were not hastily done, they were done with a 
rapidity born of enthusiasm and carried through, 
as one can see, with one inspiration; the w^ork 
really gains in consequence. 

It is true that his students helped; they were 
accustomed to throw the composition roughly upon 
the large canvases from the small sketches, to pre- 
pare the work for the master, and it might even 
be easy to say to which canvases Jordaens put his 
brush. Rubens' atelier was a strong one including 
with Jordaens, who was to become a master him- 
self, such capable painters as Diepenbeck, Van 
Thulden, Van Egmont, C. Schut, and Simon de 
Vos. But we know that Rubens made the 
sketches, and that he worked ujjon the canvases 



500 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

in Paris and that he painted the coronation scene 
and the portraits in the palace itself. 

As for the painting the f)ictures are not the 
equal of such outstanding masterpieces as the 
Descent from the Cross, of Antwerp, nor of 
the marvellous Raj^e of the Sabine Women nor 
the Inferno of Munich, nor of the great treasures 
of the Prado, but they show nevertheless an inex- 
haustible strength and fertility of invention, an 
infinite variety, a knowledge and a virtuosity evi- 
dent to every thoughtful observer. 

Tlie Marriage of Henri IV and Marie de 
Mcdicis at Lyon, is one of the most striking of 
the collection and the head of Henri IV is per- 
haps the most perfect existing portrait of the 
king. The Coronation of Marie de Medicis at 
Saint-Denis is regarded as the most successful of 
the historical series and it is classed amongst 
Rubens' most important works. 

The series is composed of twenty-one allegorical 
flatteries, under which one reads easily the char- 
acter of the haughty, obstinate, and false Marie, 
this princess of weak character, of violent pas- 
sions, proud in prosperity, humble and suppliant 
in adversity, who by her detestable character be- 
came insufferable to her husband and her son, and 
who alienated her very favourites. Under the 



THE LUXEMBOURG 501 

pure painting is the revelation of Rubens' complete 
sizing up of the situation which his bravura 
scarcely takes the trouble to conceal. He seems 
to have known that with ISIarie de ^Nledicis there 
was no fear of going too far, that she would accept 
avidl}^ flattery however fulsomely presented — the 
great point was that there should be " sufficiently 
enough." 

Rubens hands it to her strong, as the phrase is, 
in such a picture as that which depicts Henri IV 
receiving her portrait with an imbecile smile of 
rapture — '' Quelle femme! " he seems to be saying 
to himself of this smug, self-satisfied face. But 
she was far from being as beautiful as Henri 
thought from her portrait. "" Grande, grosse, avec 
des yeiLV ronds et ficves, elle n^avait rien de cares- 
sant dans les manieres'' says Sismondi, " aucune 
gaiete dans Vesprit." 

How he exposes her in such a picture as that 
in which with an air of false humility and self- 
effacement she leaves the helm of France to the 
inexpert Louis XIII; or in that where, upon the 
apotheosis of Henri IV, she sinks at last upon the 
throne urged by the insistence of every factor of 
the kingdom; or again where, having given birth 
to the puny Louis, she occupies the centre of an 
admiring group of goddesses; or in the fabulous 



502 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

exaggeration of the Felicite de la Regence — that 
regency which as we know brought disaster to 
France and to INIarie the hatred of her subjects. 

The queen planned that Rubens should decorate 
the east gallery of the palace with the events of 
the life of Henri IV, but this wing was unfinished 
in her lifetime, and in any case, the political in- 
trigues and discords, which led to the final banish- 
ment of the queen mother, forced her to renounce 
the project. It was characteristic of her that she 
took the precaution to secure her own series 
first. 

The story of her undoing is pitiful in its com- 
pleteness. Her last years were a succession of 
exiles. They first wished to send her back to 
Florence, but she, shrinking with all the strength 
of her racial pride against humiliation before her 
own people, urged the king to send her only to 
Compiegne. Later she was banished to Brussels, 
then to Ghent, and finally she fled to the court 
of her son-in-law, Charles I, under whose protec- 
tion she spent two years. At last the poor lady, 
bereft of all power and reduced to a state border- 
ing upon indigence, was obliged to retire to 
Cologne, where, stripped of all insignia of royalty, 
she died, in 1642, an old woman of sixty-nine 
years. 



THE LUXEMBOURG 503 

Amongst her colossal faults one virtue shines 
out strong, a virtue hereditary in her family, that 
of protecting the arts and letters. She gave pen- 
sions to JNIalherbe, and to ^larin; named Philippe 
de Champaigne court painter, commanded of 
Rubens this series of decorations; constructed the 
Luxembourg Palace, built the aqueduct of Arceuil, 
and founded the Hopital de la Charite. 

The old palace of ]Marie de Medicis has not 
played a role so considerable in history as has the 
Louvre or the Tuileries, but its part has neverthe- 
less been brilliant and colourful. On her exile 
from France the queen gave the estate to her 
favourite son, Gaston d'Orleans, under whom it 
became the scene of the revels of a wild and dis- 
sipated society of which he was the leader. When 
the duke died the palace was inherited by his two 
daughters, the grand c Mademoiselle, and the pious 
duchesse de Guise. It was here that Made- 
7no'iselle received the visits of M. de Lauzun, to 
whom, to the amazement and incredulity of the 
court, she was briefly betrothed. Lauzun was 
endowed with the titles, the names, the ornaments 
necessary to be named in such a contract of mar- 
riage, the prospective bride herself gave him four 
duchies of France and the name of Montpensier. 
The estate was estimated at twentv-two millions. 



504 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

The contract was prepared but at the last moment 
Louis XIV withdrew his consent. Mademoiselle 
was one of the gaiest figures of the XVIIth cen- 
tury. She inherited the intelligence, the lack of 
scruple, and the spirit of intrigue of her father, 
and though she never married was proposed suc- 
cessively for the hands of Louis XIV, Philip IV 
of Spain, the Prince of Wales (later Charles II 
of England), and the emperor Ferdinand III. 
Voltaire writes of her : " Lorsquon porta le deuil 
de Cromwell a la cour de France, Mademoiselle fut 
la seul qui ne rendit point cet hommage a la me- 
moire du meurtrier d'un roi son parentJ'' 

The last royal owner of the Luxembourg was 
the comte de Provence, known familiarly as Mon- 
sieur, afterwards Louis XVIII. When he fled 
from Paris at the time of Napoleon's return from 
Elba, his goods were confiscated and the Luxem- 
bourg became national property. 

During the Reign of Terror, when the ordinary 
prisons were insufficient to hold the victims of the 
Revolution, the Luxembourg Palace was converted 
into a house of detention where were imprisoned, 
pele-mele, without distinction of rank or fortune, 
numerous suspects. The list of unfortunates in- 
cluded Alexandre de Beauharnais and his wife, 
Josephine de la Pagerie, Camille Desmoulins, 



THE LUXEMBOURG 505 

Danton, Philippeaux, Robespierre, and David, the 
painter. 

Upon the establishment of the constitution of 
1795 the palace became the seat of government 
and was consecrated to the use of the five direc- 
tors. The Consulat followed the Directoire, with 
Napoleon as first consul in recognition of his 
magnificent victories in Egypt and Syria, and the 
Luxembourg became the Palais du Consulat. In 
1801 Napoleon created the senate which three 
years later was to declare him emperor. The 
palace became the seat of the new government and 
was known as the Palais du Senat. 

We know the garden to have been the site of 
the Roman camp which protected the palace of 
the Csesars until the time of Horiorius. The his- 
tory of the gardens then becomes that of the 
romantic old Chateau Vauvert, a maison de 
plaisance, said to have been built by Robert the 
Pious, and to have stood where now begins the 
allce of the Observatoire. Tradition said that 
the house was haunted, that it was the abode of the 
devil himself, and brave men hesitated to pass 
along the road at night because of the dreadful 
noises which issued from the manor and the fre- 
quent evils which befell nocturnal ramblers in the 
vicinitv. 



506 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

The monks of Chartreuse begged the estate 
from Saint-Louis and established themselves there 
in 1257. The court, the two cloisters, the church, 
and the cells, composed each of a distinct pavilion, 
following the usages of the order, covered a space 
large enough to contain a city. The church con- 
tained a number of illustrious sepulchres and from 
the cloister were taken the series of pictures, rep- 
resenting the Life of Saint-Bruno, by Lesueur, 
now in the Louvre. 

For her garden, Marie de Medicis exchanged a 
large tract of land lying on the other side of the 
monastery, towards the Observatoire, for a con- 
siderable portion of their property. She en- 
croached also upon the domain of another religious 
order, the Filles du Calvaire. A charming 
souvenir of this scattered order is preserved in the 
pretty Renaissance chapel, which can be seen from 
the Rue de Vaugirard, west of the Petit Luxem- 
bourg. It was built by the queen and presented 
to the nuns in recompense for the ground taken 
for the garden. 

The Revolution swept away royalties and made 
wholesale havoc of the estates of the many reli- 
gious bodies, which occupied one-third of the area 
of Paris. The Filles du Calvaire were put to 
flight. The monastery of the Peres Chartreux 



THE LUXEMBOURG 507 

was completely destroyed. The pepiniej^e of the 
Luxembourg, the allce of the Observatoire, the 
botanical gardens, houses and streets now cover 
the site. 

Aside from its rich past, the garden gains pe- 
culiar significance from its situation in the heart 
of the intellectual quarter of Paris. Most of the 
institutions of learning surround it — it is the gar- 
den of the University — and artists have estab- 
lished their general quarter in the adjoining 
streets. 

The museum of modern painters, the palace of 
the senate, and the national theatre of the Odeon 
mark its northern boundary. At its southern ex- 
tremity rises the silhouette of the Observatoire, 
while its eastern length faces at every opening a 
series of historic institutions. The main eastern 
gateway opens upon the broad Rue Soufflot, closed 
by the imposing vista of the Pantheon. To the 
left lie the law school, the Sorbonne, the LTni- 
versity of Paris, the Cluny Museum, the School 
of Medicine, etc.; and to the right, the Ecole des 
Mines. 

Not in Paris, nor in any city of France, nor, 
perhaps, in the whole world exists a garden of 
nobler aspect, more graceful design, of propor- 
tions more perfect and harmonious. While the 



508 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Tiiileries were made over, by Lenotre, the Luxem- 
bourg retains its old Renaissance form. A foun- 
tain, by de Brosse, contemporary with the palace, 
lies towards the Rue de Medicis; another, by Car- 
peaux, a chef-d'oeuvre of the XlXth century, 
makes glorious the allee of the Observatoire. 

The charm of this old garden is of a subtlety, a 
simplicity, which does not arrest superficial atten- 
tion, but sinks in more and more profoundly as 
acquaintance with its varied aspect grows. One 
must know it bleak and bare in winter. One must 
have watched its gradual transformation in the 
early spring. One must have idled away there 
dreamy, summer twilights and walked through 
the rustling, russet carpet in the autumn, when, 
especially towards the Pantheon, the great trees 
have turned to glowing masses of rust and the 
terraces are vivid with the bright bloom of the 
late flowering plants. 

The noble dignity of the palace, the elegance of 
the formal garden appeal to every aesthetic sense, 
are to feed upon and live into. As one gives up 
to the charm of the exquisite whole every finer 
instinct is stirred and satisfied. What poem, what 
picture, what music is more elevating than the 
spectacle of the garden on a sunny morning, its 
fundamental setting decked with flowers, nested in 



THE LUXEMBOURG 509 

by birds, and peopled with the gay French life 
smiling out its destiny before one? It exhales the 
very essence of happiness. 

It slips with even closer sympathy into one's 
minor moods when, wrapped in the first cool, close 
mist of those rare, unrelated days of late Septem- 
ber, a penetrating tristessc pervades and tempers 
the joy of living. Then it is like a great cathedral, 
full of mystery and quiet. 

But most sensitive and tender it becomes in 
early October, when the birds and the foreigners 
have taken wing and the marroniers, having shaken 
free of their crackling russet, unfold confidingly 
again into flower and the more sheltered trees 
show rifts of high-green leaves, their last touch- 
ing protest against the inroads of winter. Then 
it is delicious to finger late in the open, to take all 
one can of this sweet parting. 



CHAPTER XXIII 
SCATTERED TREASURES 

There are amongst the monuments of Paris 
those which astound by their grandeur, like Notre- 
Dame and the Louvre; those which satisfy by 
the perfection of their setting, hke the Luxem- 
bourg, the Concorde, and the Place des Vosges; 
those which act as great architectural axes, like 
the Sacre-Coeur, the Pantheon, the Madeleine, 
and Saint-Sulpice; those which serve a more inti- 
mate purpose of decoration, like the Sorbonne, 
Val de Grace, the Institut, and the Invalides; 
and those which stand apart and unique, scattered 
like jewels through the city — I'Auxerrois, Carna- 
valet, Cluny, the Sainte-Chapelle, the Triumphal 
Arch of the Carrousel, and Saint-Etienne-du- 
Mont. 

Of these last, each so perfect in its way, it is, 
perhaps, Saint-Etienne-du-Mont which rests 
closest upon the heart — this hijoii^ of the Renais- 
sance, this delicious flower of architecture, so 
perverse, so quaint, so exquisite, which, though 

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INTERIOK. SHOWING THK ROOD-LOFT. 



SCATTERED TREASURES 513 

half hidden by the Pantheon, makes of that vast 
monument its background. 

Irregular and capricious in its construction, it 
charms by its coquetry and its movement, by its 
variety and its grace. From the peak of its 
exceedingly pointed gable to the base of its quasi- 
classic portico; from the vaulted north porch with 
its period doors to the tip of the lanthorn sur- 
mounting the tall, slim tower; from the urns and 
statues of the lower facade, to the oval rosace of 
the gable with its expressive symbol of eternity, 
Saint-Etienne-du-Mont charms. 

Nothing more indigenous could possibly grow 
out of that wayward old Rue de la Montagne- 
Sainte-Genevieve, of which it seems the ultimate 
expression — the ultimate expression of that old 
Paris, of which this street, for those whose vision 
can pierce the shabbiness of its decline, was the 
very essence and character. Clovis himself might 
have blazed the trail over the virgin soil of the 
mountain, when he picked its summit for his re- 
nowned basilica. 

The antiquated north porch, with its semi- 
circular flight of stone steps, which continue the 
upward slope of the hill, set in strangely under 
the slender belfry, is all in keeping with the old 
neighbourhood and the oddly precipitous 2)lace 



514 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

before the entrance. The west portail, built dur- 
ing the first years of the XVIIth century, turns 
sympathetically to meet the north porch and in- 
vites the loiterer to round the bend to inspect the 
chief entrance. At the angle a mediaeval tourelle, 
with a conical top, hugs closely to a bit of high- 
pitched roof, and, above the whole, the svelte 
belfry rises to an elegant height, supported by 
the finest of tourelles enclosing the spiral stair- 
way, and at the top of the tower an octagonal 
lanthorn dominates the platform. The piquancy 
of the belfry is accentuated by long rifts in the 
stone, for so appear the windows, both pointed 
and round arched, contributing to its lightness; 
the ornaments of the lower story are still Gothic, 
and from the entablature grotesque gargoyles jut 
out from the face of the wall and spill the rain from 
the steep roof upon the passers-by. 

The origin of the church is confounded with 
that of Sainte-Genevieve, to which an earlier 
Xlllth century edifice was intended as a suc- 
cursale. The present church was projected dur- 
ing the first years of the reign of Fran9ois I and 
the portail was built by that naughty Queen 
Margot, for though the Medicis had replaced her, 
she too would leave her monument to Paris. 

And was she as naughty as they said? Her 



SCATTERED TREASURES 515 

portraits are so contradictory; in one she is a 
beautiful child, in another a designing young 
minx, another shows a dignified woman, and a 
fourth — well it is all headdress, one does not 
know what to make of it. They said she chose a 
hotel in the Rue de Seine as her domicile, because 
^' il lui parut piquant de demeurer vis-a-vis du 
Louvre, oil regnait Marie de Medicis/' Cory at 
writes, in 1611, " I saw Queene Margarite, the 
king's divorced wife, being carried by men in the 
open streets under a stately canopy." But Sully 
whom Marie de Medicis had alienated, by her 
extravagant caprices, found her — by contrast 
surely — resigned, disinterested, and sweet of 
temper. 

Saint-Etienne was begun at the apse; the choir 
was finished in 1537; and on August 2, 1610, 
Marguerite de Valois placed the first stone of the 
portail, and gave three thousand livres towards its 
erection. Finally we read, on a black marble 
tablet imbedded in the north wall of the nave that, 
in 1626, on Sexagesima Sunday, under Pope 
Urbain VIII and in the reign of Louis XIII, 
the church and high altar were consecrated, under 
the evocation of Saint Stephen. Another inscrip- 
tion, placed under the first, relates that, during 
the ceremony of consecration, two girls of the 



516 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

parish fell from the galleries of the choir with a 
portion of the balustrade upon which they were 
leaning, and were miraculously preserved from all 
hurt, and that their fall occasioned no accident, 
though the assemblage of persons was great. 

Saint-Etienne has all the advantages. It has 
an ancient and romantic history, it has a beautiful 
shell, it has a noble destination as the reliquary of 
the only tangible souvenir of Sainte-Genevieve, 
the patron saint of Paris, its interior exceeds, if 
possible, the adorable beauty of the outside, and 
it has a glorious series of windows. 

The aisles are the whole height of the church, 
the monotony broken by the triforium which runs 
merely from pillar to pillar along the sides of the 
nave and choir and is interrupted by the transept. 
In the choir it is reached by twisted stairways 
wreathed around the pillars on each side, the 
whole contrivance of triforium and spiral stair- 
ways leading up to the feature of the curious in- 
terior, the unique and beautiful rood-loft, the only 
one left in Paris, and considered a chef-d'oeuvre 
of open stone work. It was erected by Pierre 
Biard, in 1609. 

Thrown boldly across the face of the sanctuary, 
its tourelles mounting well above the platform, 
the balustrades suspended in mid-air, and thin 



SCATTERED TREASURES 517 

colonettes forming the only visible means of sup- 
port, this jube presents in its construction a series 
of fabulous difficulties which the architect set him- 
self as though merely to show his dexteritj\ An- 
gels, palms, foliage, interlaced motifs, masks, deco- 
rate the spandrils, the archivolts, and friezes. The 
jube is completed by two doors which close the 
ambulatory, so that the whole of the choir and 
apse is screened off from the nave and aisles. 
These doors are again in openwork design, in 
keeping with the lightness of the effect intended; 
and above them, in the broken pediments, sit two 
figures in stone, gracefully modelled. 

The organ is a magnificent specimen of wood- 
carving of the XVIIth century; the pulpit is car- 
ried on the shoulders of Samson. 

When the abbey of Port Royal was destroyed, 
in 1710, the body of Racine was transferred to 
Saint-Etienne and buried in the vault of the 
chapel of the Virgin, near the remains of Pascal. 

When Sainte- Genevieve was destroyed the stone 
sarcophagus of the saint was found in the crypt, 
where it had been since 511, though the relics had 
long since been removed and put into the chasse 
of which we have spoken. The poor relics of the 
body, so piously reverenced by the Parisians, so 
often carried in processions through the streets in 



518 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

times of stress, were, as we know, burned during 
the Revolution, in the Place de Greve. Deputy 
Fayau had the delicacy to send the pope an ac- 
count of this pretty ceremony. But the sar- 
cophagus somehow escaped, and, having always 
been venerated, now became the last link with 
that precious legendary figure. 

Enclosed in a modern receptacle it is preserved 
in one of the chapels of the apse. Candles are 
always burning at the shrine and at the neuvaine 
of the saint thousands come to pray at the 
sepulchre. 

Saint-Etienne is a rich museum of painted glass, 
possessing an almost complete collection of re- 
markable models from the middle of the XVIth 
century to the epoch of the last painter of note 
at the commencement of the XVIIth century. 
The oldest glass is contained in the five high 
windows of the apse, and there are others in the 
nave, and in the chapel of Sainte-Genevieve, 
where have been assembled the nine windows for- 
merly placed under the arches of the charnel 
house, which, attached to the apse, was disposed 
in the form of a cloister enclosing a small court. 

The windows display the art of the ablest paint- 
ers of their day — Jean Cousin, Claude Henriet, 
Enguerrand Lepreuce, Pinaigrier, Michu, Fran- 



SCATTERED TREASURES 519 

9ois Periez, Nicolas Desengives, Nicolas Levas- 
seur, and Jean Mounier are represented. Six 
large windows have been preserved in the col- 
lateral chapels of the choir, and the western rose 
is exceedingly handsome. The parishioners of 
Saint-Etienne were inordinately fond of glass and 
the list of donors, headed by a rich wine merchant, 
who made the most liberal foundations for the 
purpose, is a long one. 

What Saint-Etienne represents for ecclesias- 
tical architecture the Hotel de Cluny, which is 
but a short walk down the hill, represents for 
civil architecture. Constructed both at a moment 
of transition, both show Gothic principles cheered 
by a strain of the Renaissance. Cluny is older 
and more serious ; in Saint-Etienne the Renaissance 
strain develops a theme, with variations. 

If Carnavalet is the most consistently charming 
of the few preserved private residences of older 
Paris, Cluny is clearly the most distinguished. 
Large and stately, the walls, the court, the gar- 
dens, the ornamentation, the many-sided tower 
with its stone staircase, the open balustrade, the 
chimneys, and the windows, all bespeak the taste 
and elegance of its builders; while the polished 
interior of this harmonious and beautiful old 
house is all in keeping with the best traditions. 



520 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

From the point of view of its destination, the 
Hotel de Cluny is even more fortunate than 
Carnavalet, though one museum complements the 
other and the history of Paris is grasped between 
the two. The building, the furniture, and the 
ornaments of Cluny are in perfect keeping and 
the illusion of the past is admirably maintained. 
With the Hotel de Sens it may be considered 
a model of XVth century civil architecture. 

In the first half of the XlVth century, about 
the year 1340, Pierre de Chaslus, abbot of Cluny, 
bought the site of the old Palais des Thermes, 
intending to build a lodging near the college 
which his abbey possessed, not far from the Sor- 
bonne. This project was not carried out, but in 
the XVth century Jean de Bourbon, a successor 
of Chaslus, undertook the construction of the 
present edifice and laid the foundations. Upon 
these foundations Jacques dAmboise, abbot of 
Cluny, raised the present building. The principal 
entrance and fa9ade were constructed from 1485 
to 1514. 

The approach is from the Rue de Sommerard, 
named from the archaeologist whose collection was 
the nucleus of the museum, and the solid, battle- 
mented wall is pierced by a gate, surmounted by 
the arms of the abbey of Cluny, through which 




Photo .' nh-.,,.,i,n, 



HOTEL DE CT.UNY: XVTH CENTURY. 




Photo A. Oiraudon 



HOTEL DE CrUNY: PETITE PORTE D ENTREE. 




Photo A. Giraudon 



HoTEI, r»E CLUNY: A WINDOW. 




Photo A. Giraudun 



TOMB OF MAZARIN. BY COYZEVOX. 

MADE FOR THE CHAPEL OF THE INSTITUT DE FRANCE. 

KOW AT THE LOUVRE. 




TOMB OF RICHELIEU: SORBON>'E. 

BY FRANCOIS GIBARDON, AFTER THE DESIGN OF LE BRUN. 



SCATTERED TREASURES 525 

one enters upon the rich, atmospheric court of 
honour. The corjjs de logis presents as its chief 
feature the many-sided tower which encloses the 
stairway, and bearing the rose-medallions and 
cockle-shells of Saint James, in allusion to the 
builder, Jacques d'Amboise. Opposite is an old 
well from the manor of Tristan I'Hermite, near 
Amboise. The building on the west is richly 
decorated. 

From the garden the bay-window and vaulted 
hall called la chapelle basse are the features, the 
upper floor being supported by a single column. 
Upon the capital of this column are the arms 
of Jacques d'Amboise and a crowned K (Karo- 
lus) for Charles VIII. 

The famous bell of Rouen, known as Georges 
d'Amboise, is said to have been cast at Cluny and 
the great circle traced on the wall of the east 
wing is supposed to mark its dimensions. 

The interior has been restored by means of con- 
temporary pieces brought here from other build- 
ings. Thus a chimney-piece dating from the end 
of the XVth century comes from Le Mans, and 
the beautiful Fran9ois I chamber is a reconsti- 
tuted room of the epoch of the monarch. 

Between Saint-Etienne and Cluny, on the 
northern slope of Sainte-Genevieve's mountain, 



526 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

on the outskirts of the site of the gardens of 
Julian's palace, which lay along the Roman road 
to Orleans, lies the Sorbonne, the development of 
a college founded in 1250, by Robert de Sor- 
bonne, a canon of Notre-Dame, under the protec- 
tion of Saint-Louis. Robert de Sorbonne was 
the king's confessor and when Saint-Louis wanted 
to found a nunnery on this site he persuaded him 
to provide instead a charity college for theological 
students. The college thus founded soon became 
famous and the assembly of doctors of the Sor- 
bonne formed a formidable tribunal, which judged 
without appeal theological works and opinions 
and even passed sentence upon popes and kings. 
The title, docteur de Sorbomie, was gained only 
after many years of study in the institution fol- 
lowed by ten more years devoted to argument 
and debate and the preparation and defence of 
various theses, distinguished as minor, major, 
sahhatine, tentative, and 2}etite and grande sor- 
bonique. It was in this last that the aspirant 
for the degree was required to sustain and refute 
the attacks of twenty assailants or ergoteurs who, 
while the victim was forbidden to eat, to drink, 
or to leave the place, worked in relays, relieving 
each other every half hour, and harassed him 
from six in the morning to seven at night. 



SCATTERED TREASURES 527 

The Sorbonne as it stands is Richelieu's great 
contribution to Paris. He was elected proviseur, 
or head master of the institution, in 1622, and his 
first care was to reconstruct the buildings of the 
college and to build the chapel, which, finished in 
1635, was practically contemporary with the old 
church of Saint Paul and Saint Louis, in the 
Marais. Jacques Lemercier was Richelieu's archi- 
tect. We have seen his work upon the Pavilion 
de I'Horloge of the Louvre, and he designed 
Saint-Roch and the Palais Royal and worked 
upon Val-de-Grace. The chapel of the Sorbonne 
has the charm of complete unity, and being very 
small its view is well compassed by the width of 
the shady place which makes the effective ap- 
proach, and from which the dome, built not too 
far from the fa9ade, is agreeably dominant, the 
whole silhouette of the building flowing grace- 
fully towards its elevation. The front of the 
transept, towards the court, is even better, orna- 
mented with a portico of detached columns on 
the lower story with a great semi-circular window 
above, and the dome rising near the wall with full 
effect. The dome and portico of the chapel are 
placed amongst the best works of Lemercier. 

The chapel of the Sorbonne was destined to 
become the tomb of its illustrious builder, and the 



528 A LOITERER IX PARIS 

chief object of interest in the now denuded in- 
terior is the sumptuous mausoleum in marble 
erected over the sepulchre of the cardinal, in 1694, 
by Fran9ois Girardon, after the design of Le- 
brun. Richelieu is represented reclining in the 
arms of Religion, who holds the book he wrote 
in her defence; Science weeps at his feet. The 
two figures are said to be portraits of the nieces 
of the cardinal. The group at the time of its 
execution was considered the greatest of funeral 
monuments — Louis XIV had imposed upon his 
subjects the taste of Lebrun, in which there is 
always something of the pedant, but the sculptor 
saves the day by his thoroughly capable render- 
ing, his suave fluency of line and sympathetic 
draperies. The monument is too sophisticated to 
hold the interest long, but at the same time its 
very faults, concealed as they are by the smooth- 
ness of its technique, seem expressive of the sub- 
ject. The tomb is a type of its kind, and has 
also historic value as having been that for whose 
preservation Alexandre Lenoir was prepared to 
shed his blood. 

Richelieu died in 1642; a few months earlier 
Marie de Medicis had been taken from the scene 
and Louis XIII survived merely long enough to 
carry out the instructions of his tutor and to 



SCATTERED TREASURES 529 

establish Mazarin as prime minister. The palace 
which Richelieu had built for his residence after 
his grandeur had outgrown the " little Luxem- 
bourg " which Marie de Medicis had allotted him, 
the dying minister presented to the king. Thus 
the Palais Cardinal became the Palais Royal when 
Anne d'Autriche, finding herself a widow with 
two young children, adopted it as her residence 
during the long term of her regency. 

We have said that the dome of the church of 
Saint Paul and Saint Louis, in the JNIarais, was 
one of the first erected in Paris; but now the 
taste was all for domes, inspired no doubt by the 
world-wide admiration of the great Saint Peter's, 
and Paris soon made a brave showing with the 
domes of the Sorbonne, Val-de-Grace, the Insti- 
tut, and the Invalides, each one more beautiful 
than the last, and all designed within the last half 
of the XVIIth century. 

We know that Louis XIII lived practically a 
celibate, so that a direct heir to the throne had 
been despaired of when, after twenty-two years 
of marriage, Anne d'Autriche gave birth to two 
sons, Louis, surnamed Dieu-Donne, and Philippe 
de France. It was in gratitude for the birth of 
Louis that the queen built the abbey and church 
of Val-de-Grace. Louis XIV placed the corner- 



530 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

stone of the church for his mother in 1645, when 
he was a child of seven years. Fran9ois Mansart 
made the plans and began the work; Jacques 
Lemercier continued it to the great cornice, and 
Pierre Lemuet, seconded by Gabriel Leduc and 
Duval terminated the arches, the belfry, and the 
dome, in 1665. 

Val-de-Grace makes the imposing vista through 
the street of that name into which one must re- 
treat a little to appreciate the value of the elegant 
dome. Through the narrow Rue Saint-Jacques 
one comes upon it suddenly, standing within its 
grand court, closed by a handsome grill. 

All the decorations of the monument concern 
the birth of Christ by allusion to that of Louis 
XIV. The fa9ade is inscribed: Jesu nascenti 
Virginique Matri; the words, in gold, are lettered 
across the roof of the portico under which one 
enters the temple. The interior is dominated by 
the vast dome or cupola; a brief nave serves as 
a mere preface to the sanctuary to which one 
mounts by a flight of steps and which is closed 
off by a magnificent grill. The cupola is one 
immense fresco, by Mignard, a remarkable com- 
position of two hundred figures, in which Anne 
d'Autriche makes the centre of interest and, as- 
sisted bv Saint-Louis, offers to the Trinity the 



SCATTERED TREASURES 531 

model of the church, in the presence of all Cath- 
olic Christendom. 

The vaulting of the nave, its lateral arches, the 
pendentives of the dome are elaborated by figures 
sculptured by Michel Anguier, and under the 
baldaquin belongs the celebrated group La 
Creche, by Anguier, now at Saint-Roch. This 
sumptuous interior with its mosaics, its coffered 
roof, its marble pavings, the great grill before 
the choir, the bronze baldaquin, the imposing 
high altar — inspired by that of Saint-Peter's — 
is truly symbolic of its destiny, a fitting monu- 
ment to the birth of that monarch whose reign 
saw the apogee of la grandeur frangaise. 

The abbey, now a military hospital, preserves 
none the less traces of its pristine magnificence. 
Its cloisters, its galleries, its great stairways still 
exist, and the rooms of Anne d'Autriche, through 
which Louis XIII and Richelieu searched for evi- 
dence of her intrigue, are still there. 

Opposite the hospital, the rue Val-de-Grace 
leads through to the tip of the Allee de I'Observa- 
toire, back to the site of the old Chateau Vauvert, 
and to the handsome Fontaine de I'Observatoire, 
erected in 1874. The most celebrated work of 
the sculptor, Jean Baptiste Carpeaux, the foun- 
tain is one of the most distinguished works of the 



532 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

last century. Upon a pedestal in the centre of 
the great basin four allegorical figures of the 
quarters of the globe bear aloft an armillary 
sphere, belted with the signs of the zodiac. This 
group is by Carpeaux. In the basin are eight 
sea-horses by Fremiet, and between them dol- 
phins and tortoises spout abundant jets of water 
upon the horses and the group. The fountain in 
action, especially when the spray is caught by the 
wind, is an exhilarating sight. 

This locality is further enriched by Rude's great 
statue of marechal Ney, which, placed amongst 
the trees at the convocation of several streets be- 
fore the cafe, Closerie des Lilas, marks the spot 
where, on the 21st of November, 1815, " le brave 
des braves/" as Napoleon called him, was shot 
for high treason by order of Louis XVIII. Ney 
deserted with his army and joined Napoleon 
after his escape from Elba. 

From the Sorbonne and Val-de-Grace we pass 
easily to the Institut, whose dome is a feature of 
many characteristic views of Paris. It marks 
Mazarin's foundation and sepulchre. He left a 
fortune to found a college here and was buried 
in the chapel. His tomb, a great work by 
Coyzevox, is now in the Louvre. 

Attached to the older church of Saint-Louis- 




Pholu E. FiurtUt 



VAL- DE-GRACE. 




Photo A. Giratidon 



MARECHAL NEY. 

BY RUDE. 

CARREFOUR DE L'OBSERVATOIRE. 



SCATTERED TREASURES 535 

des-Invalides, as an admirable afterthought, is 
the gilded dome, the most beautiful of the domes 
of Paris. It holds for us the added significance 
of marking the sepulchre of Napoleon, but dat- 
ing from Louis XIV it shows in its relation to 
the large ensemble of the Hotel des Invalides, a 
new development of Paris, which from this time 
began to be laid out on a grander and more com- 
prehensive scale. Louis XIV extended Paris in 
all directions. The Places du Carrousel, Ven- 
dome, and des Victoires made centres which con- 
tributed to the elegance and splendour of the 
city; the Champs Elysees were planted, laid out 
with walks, and transformed into a superb public 
garden; great improvements were made on the 
river by the formation of new quays and the 
building of stone bridges. Louis XIV thought 
that ramparts were unnecessary to the capital of 
a great empire and that Paris should have for 
gates triumphal arches. He tore down the an- 
cient fortifications of Charles V and laid out in 
their place the present grands boulevards, along 
which rows of trees made a pacific wall. The old 
Portes Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin were built 
to commemorate the king's victories in Germanj^ 
and the capture of Besan^on. 

Amongst these activities of the roi-soleil was 



536 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

the erection of the old soldiers' home — the Hotel 
des Invalides. Henri IV had wished to provide 
a refuge for the numerous army veterans, who, 
old, impoverished, mutilated, were forced to beg 
their bread in the streets. Louis XIV devoted 
himself with* zest to carrying out the enterprise of 
his grandfather and built the magnificent Hotel 
des Invalides at the western extremity of the 
faubourg Saint-Germain. Liberal Bruant was 
the architect. It was finished in 1674. 

Thirty years later the church, begun by Bru- 
ant and finished by Mansart, was achieved. The 
church was to serve the occupants of the hotel 
and was approached therefore through the vast 
courtyard, behind the fa9ade of the institution, 
surrounded by open corridors. But the king re- 
quired a chapel and this was the motive of the 
construction of the great dome which makes the 
crowning feature of the church and the pivot of 
those handsome avenues which approach it from 
the Place Vauban. The king arrived from this 
side with more pomp, descending from his car- 
riage at the steps of the dome, whose door opened 
but for him. 

Bruant died before finishing the edifice and the 
royal chapel was completed by Jules-Hardouin 



SCATTERED TREASURES 537 

Mansart, a nephew of the designer of Val-de- 
Grace. We enter, as did Louis, by the south end 
of the church, through a great gilded door, sur- 
mounted by two angels who hold the arms of 
France. A grill separates the church from the 
dome, making what seems at first glance to be 
a separate edifice, whose great point now is the 
tomb of Napoleon, lowered into the circular, open 
crypt, under the dome. The form of the chapel 
is that of a Greek cross. The tombs of Turenne 
and Vauban, two marshals of France, under 
Louis XIV, occupy the east and west branches 
of the cross. We know that Napoleon himself 
gave Turenne this sepulchre after the desecrations 
at Saint-Denis. 

Four smaller cupolas encircle the great dome, 
and in the chapel to the left of the entrance the 
remains of Napoleon were deposited before the 
ceremony of the great interment. These four 
corner chapels are richly decorated to harmonize 
with the magnificence of the dome and are orna- 
mented with statues and reliefs by the ablest 
sculptors of their century. Espignole, Coustou, 
Adam, and Coyzevox enriched the parts under 
the arches, Girardon directed the composition. 
The cupola was painted by Lafosse and Jouvenet, 



538 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Through the grill are seen the standards cap- 
tured by the French armies arranged along the 
cornices of the nave. 

Leaning over the white marble balustrade, which 
surrounds the circular opening, we see in the 
centre of the crypt the rich sarcophagus of Si- 
berian porphyry which contains the remains of 
the first emperor, brought back from Saint He- 
lena, by Joinville, in 1840. The tomb is the 
design of Visconti, the younger, accepted from a 
concours of eighty-one projects exposed at the 
Beaux-Arts, in 1841. The entrance to the crypt, 
at the back of the high altar, is guarded night and 
day by an old soldier from the Invalides, and 
above the doorway is inscribed Napoleon's wish: 
'' Je desire que mes c end res reijosent sur les 
lords de la Seine, au milieu de ce peuple frangais 
que j'ai tant aime/^ 



CHAPTER XXIV 
ET PUIS APRES? 

With Louis XIV came the zenith of the mon- 
archy, and the great, spectacular Paris of to-day, 
the Paris of the boulevards and of the Champs 
Elysees, was born of his pride, his ambition, and 
his power. Louis XIV gave the note of the 
modern city, no longer confined within mediaeval 
walls, but stretching out in all directions and 
assuming the aspect and proportions of a me- 
tropolis. 

As he planned and conceived, so his successors, 
Louis XV, Napoleon Bonaparte, Louis-Philippe, 
and Napoleon III, developed upon an always 
increasing scale of magnificence. Louis XV cre- 
ated out of the desolation of the fields beyond 
the Tuileries the superb Place de la Concorde, 
which, forming a point of arrival for the descent 
of the Champs Elysees, made the hnk between 
this triumphal avenue and the garden of the 
palace, which had been done over by Lenotre, 
and became the centre of the westward moving 
city. 

539 



540 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

The PLice de la Concorde was made the vast 
axis of a group of related buildings which it tied 
together in a common design. Gabriel was the 
architect and he built the handsome Ministere de la 
Marine and the Hotel Crillon, separated from 
each other by the Rue Royale, for the reception of 
ambassadors and other distinguished personages. 
The Palais Bourbon, built for a daughter of 
Louis XIV and Madame de Maintenon, across the 
Seine, balanced the Madeleine, begun by Louis 
XV as a church and carried out under Napoleon 
as a temple of victory, in honour of the soldiers 
of the Grand Army. 

The Place Louis XV, as the Concorde was 
first called, commemorated the Peace of Aix-la- 
Chapelle, and the king " gratified " his subjects 
by permitting an equestrian statue of himself, in 
bronze, to ornament the centre, where now stands 
the obelisk. Bouchardon and Pigalle executed 
the statue of the king, a figure crowned with 
laurel, dressed in the Roman style and mounted 
upon a charger, supported by four virtues. This 
statue, when first erected, drew forth many clever 
sayings from the wits of the capital, in allusion 
both to the disposition and the execution of the 
figures, of which those forming the pedestal were 



ET PUIS APRES? 541 

v^ery inferior to that of the king. One of these 
pasquinades ran: 

"" O la belle statue! O le beau pieclestal! 
Les Vert us sont a pied, le Vice est a cheval/' 

The Place de la Concorde was from the first 
marked for tragic history, and before it was quite 
finished was the scene of a terrible catastrophe 
following the festivities attendant upon the mar- 
riage of the dauphin of France with the beautiful 
Marie-Antoinette, which was celebrated at Ver- 
sailles, on the 16th of May, 1770. On the 30th 
day of the month the various spectacles, held in 
honour of the nuptials, terminated by a mag- 
nificent display of fireworks in the Place Louis XV 
attracting a multitude that filled to overflowing the 
whole of that capacious square. It was in leav- 
ing the place that the newly opened Rue Royale 
became choked with the populace and in the panic 
that ensued many people were crushed to death, 
while others, stumbling over the pitfalls created 
by the unfinished building to the two sides of the 
opening, were thrown into the freshly dug founda- 
tions and killed. 

It was in the Place Louis XV that the Revolu- 



542 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

tion may be said to have broken out and here was 
shed the first blood in that terrible convulsion. 
Here was also the principal place of execution. 
The first victim who perished in this place was 
the king himself. The fountain, dedicated to the 
sea (on the south side), marks the exact spot 
where Louis XVI died, January 21, 1793, one of 
twenty-eight hundred people who were beheaded 
in this place. 

The fountains and the eight allegorical statues 
of the great provincial cities of France date from 
the second empire ; the groups of sculpture, known 
as Les Chevaux de Marly, by Guillaume Coustou, 
which flank the entrance to the Champs Elysees, 
date from Louis XIV. 

The Champs Elysees is now the magnificent, 
modern entrance to the city. Napoleon improved 
it for the victorious entry of his army and planned 
the Triumphal Arch of the Etoile, one of four 
which he intended to erect in commemoration of 
his victories. It was begun in 1806, from the 
designs of Chalgrin, but not finished until 1836, 
when both architect and founder were no more. 
It is clearly less choice than the little Arc de 
Triomphe du Carrousel, which we have classed 
amongst the jewels of Paris, but it rejoices in one 
fine example of sculpture by the great Rude — 




I'hutu A. Giraiidon 



LA BANSE. 

BY CARPEAUX. 

FAgADE OF THE OPERA. 



n 




I' hut (J A. Giraudan 



LE DKPART. 
liY RUDE. 
ARC UU TRIOMPHE I)E I/F.TOILE. 



ET PUIS APRES? 545 

a high relief of the Genius of War summoning 
the Nation to Arms, placed against the right hand 
pier of the arch, facing down the avenue. 

Straight down the Champs Elysees, across the 
Concorde, through the garden of the Tuileries, 
under the Arc du Carrousel, the whole immense 
composition has been considered with the vast 
palace of the Louvre as its base. The last object 
in the line of this magnificent vista is Paul Bart- 
lett's equestrian statue of Lafayette, conceived as 
a youth setting forth upon his romantic adventure 
in aid of American independence. The statue is 
the gift of young Americans to Paris and ranks 
not only as the masterpiece of the American 
sculptor, but as one of the great equestrians of 
the world. 

The arcades of the Rue de Rivoli are Napo- 
leon's contribution to this part of Paris, built as 
a souvenir of his native streets. The emperor 
continued them through the Rue Castiglione which 
leads to the Place Vendome and to the column 
erected by Napoleon in imitation of the Trajan, 
at Rome, and covered with reliefs of his victories 
in Germany, from designs by Bergeret, cast from 
Austrian cannon. A bronze statue of Louis XIV, 
by Girardon, at first ornamented the centre of 
this space. 



5m A LOITERER IN PARIS 

Napoleon had a fancy for planting memorials 
of himself in historic places associated with other 
powerful monarchs. Both this statue of Louis 
XIV and the famous Henri IV, on the Pont- 
Neuf, had been demolished during the Revolution, 
and Napoleon had a statue of himself, by Chaudet, 
placed upon the top of the Colonne Vendome, 
and planned an obelisk, inscribed with his name, 
to replace the Henri IV statue. Louis XVIII, 
on ascending the throne, took from the Place 
Vendome the bronze statue of the emperor and 
adding it to another had both melted into the 
present statue of his ancestor Henri IV. Fran- 
9ois Frederic-Lemot, of Lyon, is the sculptor of 
the monument to the hero of Ivry. 

A second statue of Napoleon, by Seurre, made 
from cannon taken in Algiers, was magnanimously 
erected by Louis-Philippe in 1833, only to be 
replaced in 1863, by a copy of the first statue, by 
Chaudet. On May 16, 1871, on the motion of 
the painter, Courbet, the Communards threw 
down the entire column. It was rebuilt from the 
fragments in 1874. 

Under Napoleon III Paris underwent a still 
more drastic transformation owing to the enter- 
prise of Georges Eugene Haussmann, prefect of 
the Seine, who cut broad avenues ruthlessly 




LE PENSETJB. 
BY RODIN. 
PANTHEON. 



ET PUIS APRES? 549 

through dense masses of houses to the destruction 
of numberless tortuous streets. To this era be- 
long the great principal arteries of traffic running 
north and south— the Boulevards de Strasbourg 
and de Sebastopol, the Boulevards du Palais and 
Saint-Michel, the Boulevards Haussmann and de 
Magenta, the Boulevards Saint-Germain and du 
Montparnasse, the Rue de Rennes, and the pro- 
longations of the Rues de Rivoli, de Turbigo, and 
Lafayette. 

The Bois de Boulogne, the Bois de Vincennes, 
the Pare Monceau, the Buttes-Chaumont, and other 
squares and gardens were the outgrowth of this 
later development. The Opera and the Hotel de 
Ville are the two giant efforts amongst the pro- 
digious building of this period. 

The Opera, designed by Garnier, derives its 
chief distinction as a background for Carpeaux' 
famous group, L,a T>anse, which ornaments the 
right side of the principal facade. The Hotel de 
Ville is famous for its wealth of modern decora- 
tion, done by all the great French painters of the 
last generation. 

Finally the several great expositions added to 
Paris such spectacular notes as the Trocadero, 
the Grand Palais, the Petit Palais, the Pont 
Alexandre III, which ties into a greater scheme 



550 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

of comiDosition the esplanade, the hotel, and the 
dome of the Invalides. 

Such was the development of Paris up to the 
outbreak of the great European war, which in 
time to come will surely mark a new era in the 
history of the city. Even now the fortifications, 
which date only from the last revolution, are being 
demolished, not only to admit of further expan- 
sion but because they offer no defence against 
modern warfare. The little pleasure boats, which 
used to make travelling so agreeable up and down 
the winding river, having been requisitioned dur- 
ing the war, are now condemned. When they are 
replaced, if ever they are replaced, it will be by 
some modern speed ship which will bear about as 
much resemblance to the flotilla of happy memory 
as does the vajmre of the Grand Canal to the 
languorous gondola. Already their absence 
makes the Seine a more serious river. 

But the Seine itself lives in constant menace 
of dredging, widening, and straightening by a 
canal from Rouen, which will make of Paris a 
port, and the river no place at all for loitering. 
What will do then, poor things, the fishermen of 
the Seine, that contemplative society of Izaak 
Waltons, who pass their lives in dreamy pursuit 
of the non-existent poisson? And what, in win- 



ET PUIS APRES? 551 

ter, will do the daily papers, when, its flux for- 
ever calmed, the river will flow sagely between 
its banks, and the crue de la Seine will no longer 
fill in the dull moments of journalism? 

We who have weathered the war and its after- 
math have assisted at the birth of a new Paris. 
Let this book stand as a tribute to the old. 



A SCHEDULE FOR TWO WEEKS IN 
PARIS 

1st day. lie de la Cite, a ramble to discover 
Lutetia, the village which Julius C^sar found 
upon his conquest of Gaul. Notre-Dame (on the 
site of a temple to Jupiter). Palais de Justice 
(on the site of the old Roman palace) . The Sainte- 
Chapelle. The Pont-Neuf. Statue of Henri IV. 
Madame Roland's house and the Place Dauphine. 

2nd day. The Arenes de Lutece, an amphi- 
theatre built in the time of the Caesars. The site 
of the Palais des Thermes, built in the IVth cen- 
tury and marked by the remains of the great 
Frigidarium of the ancient palace. 

Musee de Cluny, the hotel a fine example of 
XVth century civil architecture, and the museum, 
rich in historic collections dating back to Roman 
times. 

Sainte-Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris: a 
ramble over the "^ montaigne Sainte-Genevieve " 
— the tower of the ancient basilica of Sainte- 
Genevieve, founded by Clovis, the first king of 
Paris. Sainte-Etienne du Mont, an early Renais- 



TWO WEEKS IN PARIS 553 

sance church containing the shrine of Sainte- 
Genevieve — the Pantheon built originally as a 
temple to the saint — decorations within concerning 
her life, by Puvis de Chavannes. 

^3rd day. Saint-Germain-des-Pres, an ancient 
church, built upon the site of a temple to Isis, 
centre of an immense abbey which formerly dom- 
inated this region, founded by Childebert, and 
long the sepulchre of the kings of the first race. 
Behind the church still stands the abbatial palace. 
This powerful abbey established the prestige of 
the quarter known as the faubourg Saint- 
Germain. 

Saint- Julien-le-Pauvre, an ancient church con- 
temporary with Notre-Dame; Saint-Severin, a 
Gothic church in excellent preservation. Saint- 
Martin-des-Champs (refectory and church) now 
part of the Conservatoire des Arts et IVIetiers. 

4tli day. Montmartre, the mountain of the 
martyrs, where was beheaded Saint-Denis, the 
first bishop of Paris, he who introduced Chris- 
tianity into Gaul. Saint-Pierre-de-Montmartre, 
an ancient church on the site of a temple to Mer- 
cury and a Merovingien church, of both of which 
there are traces. The basilica of the Sacre Coeur, 
built by the Parisians in atonement for the crimes 
of 1871. 



554 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

From Montmartre, according to the legend, 
Saint-Denis walked north, carrying his head in his 
hands, to the site of the town of Saint-Denis, where 
he was interred, with his companions, Rustique and 
Eleuthere. 

Saint-Denis, the cathedral, built by DagoDert 
as a memorial to the martyrs: interesting for its 
architecture, the point of arrival of Gothic, and 
famous as the sepulchre of the kings of France. 

N.B. The tombs are shown by a guide after- 
noons only. Visitors armed with a " permission," 
granted by the Ministry of Beaux-Arts, (3 rue de 
Valois), may visit the tombs at leisure, unaccom- 
panied, in the mornings. 

oth day. Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, a Gothic 
church founded by Childebert, long the royal 
church; from the belfry of the old square tower 
was rung the signal for the massacre of Saint 
Bartholomew. 

The Louvre of Fran9ois I and Henri II, with 
fa9ade by Lescot and Goujon, in the southwest 
corner of the court; enter by the Pavilion de 
I'Horloge. Salle des Cariatides, old apartments 
of Catherine de Medicis. Charles IX window 
from which (it is said) he fired upon the 
Huguenots. Rooms of French primitive and 
Renaissance sculpture. 



TWO WEEKS IN PARIS 555 

The Fountain of the Innocents. 

Oth day. Fontainebleau, to imbibe the spirit of 
the Renaissance and Fran9ois I. 

7tli day. The Louvre of Catherine de Medicis 
and Henri IV. From the quay the rich facade 
of the Galerie dii Bord de VEau, begun by Cath- 
erine de Medicis and completed by Henri IV, the 
so-called Charles IX balcony and the Porte Jean 
Goujon. 

Within: Galerie d'Apollon, first built by Henri 
IV, connects the old Louvre with the long gal- 
lery, built by Catherine de Medicis. Room of 
French primitives containing portraits of this 
epoch and earlier. 

The Tuileries Garden — fragments of the palace 
(burned in the Commune). Astronomical tower 
at the Bourse de Commerce, a remnant of the 
Hotel de Soissons, built by Catherine de Medicis. 
Saint-Eustache. Tomb of Colbert. 

8th day. Chantilly. 

9th day. The Marais. Exterior of the Hotel 
de Ville. Ramble down the Rue de I'Hotel de 
Ville. Hotel de Sens (XVth century). Place 
des Vosges. Hotel Sully. Hotel Barbette. Hotel 
Carna valet and its famous historical museum. 
Locality of the Temple. 

10th day. Tour Saint-Jacques. Tour de Jean 



556 A LOITERER IN PARIS 

sans Peur. Hotel de Soubise. Archives Na- 
tionale. 

Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Pavilion Henri IV, 
museum of national antiquities, and forest of 
Saint-Germain. Sunset from the Terrace. 

11th day. Louvre; the Rubens Gallery of al- 
legorical subjects drawn from the life of Marie 
de Medicis and painted for her dowager palace, 
the Luxembourg. 

The Luxembourg Palace (now the Senate). 
The Petit Luxembourg. The Luxembourg Mu- 
seum of modern paintings. The Luxembourg 
Garden. Medicis Fountain and Carpeaux Foun- 
tain. 

ISth day. Richelieu and Louis XIII. The 
Sorbonne. Richeheu's tomb in the chapel. The 
Palais Royal, Richelieu's residence. Church of 
Saint Paul and Saint Louis in the Marais, built 
by Louis XIII and Richelieu. The Louvre of 
this epoch — Pavilion de I'Horloge and north wing 
of the court. Sculpture and painting — Mazarin's 
tomb (from the Institut). The Institut de 
France. 

Val-de-Grace, built by Anne d'Autriche in 
gratitude for the birth of Louis XIV. 

13th day. The Invalides, built by Louis XIV as 
a home for old soldiers — the museum of artillery, 



TWO WEEKS IN PARIS 557 

the church, and the dome. Napoleon's tomb. 
Rodin ^luseum. The choir of Notre-Dame. 

Versailles. 

14th day. Trocadero, conceived by Napoleon 
as a palace for the roi de Borne, achieved by a 
great Paris Exposition. ^luseum of casts of 
French monumental sculpture. A glimpse of 
modern Paris — the Arc de Triomphe de I'Etoile, 
Napoleon's conception for the entry ojp victorious 
armies. 

Modern painting at the Petit Palais and the 
Hotel de Ville. 

Malmaison. 



SCHEDULE FOR ONE WEEK IN PARIS 

1st day: A.M. Notre-Dame — Sainte-Chapelle 
— Saint- Julien-le-Pauvre — Saint-Severin — Pont- 
Neuf. 

P.M. Saint-Germain-en-Laye. 

2nd day:* A.M. Saint-Etienne-du-Mont — Pan- 
theon — Sorbonne — Cluny Museum and Salle des 
Thermes — Saint-Germain-des-Pi-es. 

P.M. Saint-Cloud. 

3rd day: A.M. Louvre — sculpture rooms. 
Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois. 

P.M. Versailles. 

4th day: A.M. Musee Carnavalet — ^Place des 
Vosges — Hotel de Sens. 

P.M. Luxembourg Gardens, palace, and mu- 
seum. 

5th day: A.M. Louvre, paintings. Tuileries 
Garden. 

P.M. Saint-Denis. 

6th day: A.M. Napoleon's tomb — the Invalides 
— Rodin Museum. 

P.M. Malmaison. 

7th day: Trocadero Museum. 

P.M. Montmartre. 

558 



INDEX 



Abbate, Nicola del, 432 
Abbaye de Moutmarlre, 356 
Abbaye de Port Royal, 517 
Abbaye de Royaumont, 316 
Abbaye Hautes Bx'uyeres, 335, 

344 
Abbaye Saint-Denis, abbots of, 

284 
Abbaye Sainte-Genevieve, 172, 

316, 325 
Abbaye Saint - Germain - des - 

Pres, 191 
royal sepulchre under the 

Merovingiens, its abbots 
Abbaye Saint-Maur-les-Fosses, 

95 
Abbaye Saint- Victor, 92, 106 
Abbaye Saint - Vincent et 

Sainte-Croix, see Saint- 

Gerinain-des-Pres, 185 
Abbaye, Val-de-Grace, 529, 531 
Act of Restitution, 445 
Adam, 537 

Adelaide de France, 353 
Agincourt, Battle of, 339 
Aiguillon, duchesse d', 495 
Alix de Savoie, 253 
Alte Pinalothek at Munich, 497 
Amboise, cardinal d', 340 
Ange, Marcel, 470 
Anguier, Michel. 338, 423, 531 
Anjou, due d', 455 
Anne d'Autriche, 256, 401, 406, 

423, 468, 529, 531 
Anne de Bourgogne, tom.b, 454 
Anne de Bretagne, 365,371,372 
death, 373 



Anne de Bretagne, tomb, 332, 
340 
tomb of children at Tours, 
340 

Anne de Montmorency, 402, 405 

Aqueduct of Ai-eeuil, 63, 491, 
494, 503 

Arc de Nazareth, 482 

Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, 
411, 425, 510, 542 

Arenes de Lutece, 61, 62 

Aries, 57 

Armagnae, comte d', 41, 49 

Astronomical Column of Cath- 
erine de Medicis, 483 

Auguste, apotheosis of, 308 

Augustus, 61 

Autun, 58 

Bacarit, 234, 397 

Ballu, 218 

Balzac, 50 

Baptiste, see Saint-Jean-Bap- 
tiste, 437 

Barbette, Etienne, 452 

Barrcre, 316 

Bartlett, Paul Wayland, Eques- 
trian statue of Lafayette, 
545 

Bartlett, Truman H., 210, 211 

Barye, 429 

Bastille, 42, 467 

Bastille Saint-Antolne, 447 

Baudouin II, 296 

Bayard, chevalier, 374 

Beauharnais, Alexandre de, 
504 



5.59 



560 



INDEX 



Beaulieu, Geoffrey de, 311 
Beaumaichais, 391 
Beauvais, Pierre de, 4G8 
Bedford, Duke of, 4(il 
Bellier, Catherine, 4G8 
Bergeret, 545 
Bcruin, chevalier, 397 
Berruier, Philippe, 298 
Berry, due de, 4G1 
Berthier, 424 
Bethune, Maximilian de, see 

Sully, 472 
Biard de, 423 
Biard, Pierre, 516 
Bibliotheque Nationale Maza- 
rine, 32, 43, 58, 101, 212, 

308, 468 
Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve, 

184 
Bigoine, Pierre, 343 
Birague, Rene de, statue by 

Pilon, 470 
Biron, marechal de, 47 
Biseornette, 147 
Blanche de Castille, 41, 06, 302, 

306, 453 
Blois, chateau de, 50 
Boileau, Kieolas, 214 

tomb, 302 
Bois de Boulogne, 540 
Bois de Vincennes, 5-19 
Bonnard, 174 
Bontenij^s, Pierre, 335, 343, 

344, 363 
Bordeaux, 57 
Bosio, 425 
Bouchardon, 540 
Bouchet, Jehan, 52 
Bouillard, dom, 102 
Boulevard de Magenta, 549 
Boulevard de Scbactopol, 549 
Boulevard de Strr.cbourg, 549 
Boulevard du Montparnasse, 

549 



Boulevard du Palais, 104, 299, 

549 
Boulevard Haussmanu, 549 
Boulevard Henri IV, 74, 338, 

453, 454 
Boulevard Saint-Germain, 71, 

73, 1G6, 208, 245, 549 
Boulevard Saint-Michel, 54, 71, 

549 
Bourbon, cardinal de, 211 
Bourbon Monarchs, 352 
Bourbon Vault, 318, 321 
Bourges, Jean de, 343 
Bourgogne, due de, 337 
Bourlet, frere Jacques, 213 
Bourse de Commerce, 483 
Bouteiller, Jehan, 162 
Brandon, Charles, Duke of Suf- 
folk, 65, 372, 374 
Bran tome, 451 
Breze, eomte de, 452 
Brissot, 48 
Brosse, Jean de, 491 
Brosse, Salomon de, 362, 456, 

491, 492, 508 
Bruant, Liberal, 536 
Buch, captal de, 369 
Buci, Simon Matiffas de, effigv, 

153 
monument, 113 
Buister, Philippe, 183 
Bullant, Jean, 361, 411, 

429 
Burgundy, Duke of, 452 
Buttes-Chaumont, 549 

Cabinet du Roi, 431, 441 
Caesar Borgia, 371 
Calvin, John, 223 
Capetien Dynasty, 38, 87 
Carlovingien Dynasty, 270, 278, 

319 
Carnavalet, Madame, 476 
Carpeaux, Jean-Baptiste, 429, 

531 



INDEX 



561 



Carpeaux, Jean-Baptiste La 

Danse, 549 
Caserne de la Cite, 105 
Caserne ties Cclestins, 453 
Casiinir, king of Poland, mau- 
soleum, 213 
Casimir V, of Poland, 191 
Castellan, Oliver and Louis de, 

tomb, 213 
Cathedral of Amiens, 75 
Cathedral of Arras, 159 
Cathedral of Bayeux, 128 
Cathedral of Bourges, 75, 118 
Cathedral of Chartres, 75, 113, 

118, 143 
Cathedral of Comminges, 128 
Cathedral of Laon, 128 
Cathedral of Le Mans, 75 
Cathedral of Lyon, 118 
Cathedral of Rheims, 75, 113, 

118, 128 
Cathedral of Rouen, 75 
Cathedral of Saint-Beryin, 128 
Cathedral of Tours, 340 
Catherine de Medicis, 34, 49, 
222, 280, 283, 345, 34G, 
350, 365, 370, 382, 398, 
400, 401, 402, 405, 408, 
410, 411, 402, 483, 485^ 
recumbent statue, 335, 347 
tomb, 335, 340, 345 
Catulle, 274 
Cavelier, 429 

Ceinture de Saint-Eloy, 94 
Cellini, Benvenuto, 376, 432 
Nvmph of Fontainebleau, 
"438 
Chalgrin, 542 

Chambige, Pierre, 382, 405, 429 
Champ de Mars, 69 
Champ Elysees, 378, 535, 539, 

542. 545 
Chantrel, Jacques, 343 
Cbapelle d'Orleans, 338, 453, 
454 



Cbapelle des Valois, 280, 345, 

349, 350, 351 
Chapel of the Filles du Cal- 

vaire, 506 
Chardin, 363 
Charlemagne, 140, 144, 221, 

278, 279, 319, 349 
archaic statue, 245 
statue, 89, 132 
Charles I of England, 498, 502 
collection, 441, 442 
portrait by Van Dyck, 445 
Charles II, king of Navarre, 

369 
Charles II, le Chauve, recum- 
bent statue, 322 
Charles II of England, 504 
Charles V, 37, 38, 42, 165, 336, 

338, 369, 447, 448, 453, 

456, 457 
statue, 453 
Charles VI, 41, 160, 301, 336, 

448, 456, 457, 461 
Charles VII, 223, 457, 461 
Charles VIII, 302, 309, 360 

370, 371, 461, 525 
tomb, 322 
tomb of children at Tours, 

340 
Charles IX, 350, 382, 405, 410, 

462 
balconv, 406, 415 
Charles X, 313, 353 
Charles de Bourbon, 191 
Charles due d'Orleans. 339 

recumbent statue, 330 
Charles Ferdinand d'Artois, 

due de Berry, 353 
Charles of Luxembourg, see 

Charles-Quint, 372 
Charles-Quint. 370, 377 
Charlotte Corday. 48 
Cbaslus, Pierre de, 520 
Chateaubriand, 238 
Chateau d'Amboise, 364, 430 



562 



INDEX 



Chateau d'Ancy-le-Franc, 430 
Chateau d'Anet, fagade, 323 

386, 438 
Chateau d'Azay-le-Kideau, 364, 

430 
Chateau d'Ecouen, 391 
Chateau d'Usse, 430 
Chateau de Blois, 364, 365, 430, 

496 
Chateau de Chambord, 364, 

305, 366 
Chateau de Chantilly, 481 
Chateau de Chaumont, 405 
Chateau de Chenonceau, 301, 

305, 386. 405, 430 
Chateau de Coulommiers, 491 
Chateau de Gaillon, fagade, 

323, 340, 430 
Chateau de Grip^nan, 484 
Chateau de la Ferte-Milon, 330 
Chateau de Maisons Lafitte, 

430 
Chateau de ]\ronceaux, 491 
Chateau de Pierrefonds, 330 
Chateau de Plessis, 304 
Chateau de Tanlay, 430 
Chateau de Vaux, 430 
Chateau de Verneuil, 430 
Chateau de Versailles (old), 

430 
Chateau de Vincennes, 38 
Chateau of Rambouillet, 345 
Chateau Vauvert, 505. 531 
Chaumette, chief magistrate of 

the Commune, 122 
Chemin de Montmartre, 250 
Chenillon, 119 
Childebert, 76, 83, 85. 88, 106, 

185, 191, 193, 195, 221, 

368, 456 
gifts to Saint-Germain-des- 

Pres, 191 
statue, 209 
tomb. 201, 235 
Childebert and Clotaire, mur- 



der of their nephews, 169, 
193 
Siege of Saragossa, 192 
Childeric, 77, 79, 173 
Chilperie and Fredegonde, 
tomb, 199 
tomb, 201 
Christ in the Garden of Olives 

by Delacroix, 470 
Cimabue, 290 

Cimetiere de la Madeleine. 353 
Cimetiere des Innocents, 408 
Cimetiere Pere Lachaise, 173, 

217, 240, 257 
Claude de France, 372 
marriage, 373 
recumbent statue, 344 
tomb, 332, 340. 344 
Clodoald (Saint-Cloud), 171, 

246 
Clodomir, 83, 84 
Clotaire, 83, 84 
Clotaire II and Bertrude, tomb, 

199 
Clotilde, 79, 80, 83, 169, 172, 

196 
Clouet, Jean, 363 
Clouet, Jehannet, 363 

porti^aits of Francois I. 438 
Clovis, 76, 77, 78, 79. 80, 83, 
97, 98, 166, 169, 172, 179, 
185, 196, 269, 513 
baptized, 82 

converted to Christianity, 81 
death of, 83 
tomb, 182, 325, 326 
Colbert, 441, 442 
Colignv, Admiral, 222, 399, 

400 
Colonne Vendome, 545 
Column of Anne de Mont- 
morency, 338 
Column of Francois II, 335, 

338 
Column of Henri III, 335 



INDEX 



563 



Column of Timoleon de Bris- 

sac, 338 
Comedie Frangaise, 62 
Commune, 42, 122, 412, 546 
Conciergerie, 29, 44, 49, 50, 

51 
Concile de Paris, 86 
Concini, 495 
Concordat, 284 
Concorde, Place de la, 50 
Conde, the Grand, statue by 

Sarazin, 470 
Confrerie des Bourgeois, 447 
Conservatoire des Arts et Me- 
tiers, 217, 260, 261 
Constantius Clilorus, 54, 60 
Consulate, 445, 505 
Convent des Celestins, 316, 338, 

453 
Convent des Cordeliers, 316 
Convent des Jacobins, 316 
Convent des Visitandines. 471 
Corneille, 401 
Corregg'io, Antiope, 445 

Mystic Marriage of Saint 

Catherine, 445 
Corrozet, 481 
Cortot, 464 

Corvat, Crudities, 160, 515 
Cosimo III, 254 
Council of Orleans, 97 
Council of Trente, 475 
Courbet, Gustave, 546 
Cour de Harlay, 41 
Cour des Tuileries, 411 
Cour du Mai, 41, 49, 50 
Cousin, Jean, 338, 363, 518 
Coustou, 537 
Coustou, Jeune, 470 
Coustou, Guillaume, 213 
Coustou, Guillaume (Coustou 

Jenne), 155 
Coustou, Nicolas, 152, 155 
Coyzevox, 537 
Coyzevox, Antoine, 155, 532 



Coyzevox, Antoine, statue of 
Louis XIV, 480, 481 

Crevelli, Lucrezia, 437 

Cromwell, 504 

Crown of Thorns, 297, 299, 
305, 307 



Dagobert, 94, 191, 269, 276, 

278, 329, 349 
tomb, 325, 327, 329, 330 
Damiens, 38, 455 
Danton, 48, 505 
David, 505 
Deehaume, Geoffry, 119, 131, 

301 
Delacroix, Eugene, 416 

Christ in the Garden of 

Olives, 470 
Delaure, 61 
Delorme, Marion, 468 
Delorme, Philibert, 335, 343, 

345, 361, 411,412, 429 
Derand, Francois, 469 
Descartes, Rene, 214, 260 

monument to, 183 
Desengives, Nicolas, 519 
Desmoulins, Camille, 48, 504 
Diane de Poitiers, 37, 177, 365, 

385, 405, 409, 438, 452 
monogram, 482 
statue by Goujon, 386 
Diane of Jean Goujon, 177 
Diepenbeck, 499 
Directorate, 445, 461, 505 
Doctrovee, 195 
Dodon, abbot of Saint-Denis, 

284 
Douglas, James, tomb, 213 
Douglas, William, tomb, 213 
Duban, 313, 426 
Dubarry, Madame, 48 
Dubois, Ambroise, 423 
Dubois, Paul, 153 



5Q4> 



INDEX 



Dubreul, Jacques (pere Du- 
breul), 103, 182, 204 

Du Cerceau, J-A, 472, 491 

Du Cerceau, Jaeques-Androuet, 
34, 412, 429, 462 

Ducbesse de Valentinous, see 
Diane de Poitiers, 402 

Duguescbn, 319, 322 

Dumont, Auguste, 429 

Dupaty, 464 

Duplessis, 159 

Dupuis, astronomer, 122 

Durand, Guillaume, 128 

Buret, 429 

Duval, 530 

Ecole de Medicine, 507 

Ecole des Beaux-Arts, 180, 270, 

325, 386 
Ecole des Mines, 507 
Edict of Nantes, 480 
Eglise de la Sorbonne, 527 
Eglise de la Visitation, 471 
Eglise des Blancs-Manteaux, 

95 
Eglise des Capueines, 159 
Eglise des Celestins, 335, 453, 

454 
Eglise des Innocents, 392, 394 
Eglise des Saints-Apotres, see 

Sainte-Genevieve, IGG 
Eglise Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, 

250 
Eglise Notre-Dame-des-Cliamps, 

273 
Eglise Saint-Andre-des-Arts, 

186 
Eglise Saint-Bartbelemy. 104 
Eglise Saint-Benoit, 274 
Eglise Saint-Christopho, 98 
Ef^lise Saint-Croix, 95 
Eglise Saint-Denis, 86, 111, 

113, 118, 128, 132, 150, 

200, 201, 253, 263, 269, 

308, 362, 452 



Eglise Saint -Denis, Cour Neuve, 
explosion, 287 
de-la-Cbartre, 103, 104, 274 
du-Pas, 101, 274 
portrait statues of tbe doors, 

285 
royal remains, 353 
Royal Vault, 350, 351, 352, 

353 
tbe crypt, 349 
tbe glass, 287 
tbe tombs, 314 
Eglise Saint-Eloy, 96 
Eglise Saint-Etienne, 85, 88, 
101 
ecclesia senior, 140 
Senoir Ecclesia, 86 
Eglise Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, 

153, 169, 178, 362, 510 
Eglise Saint-Eustacbe, 250 
Eglise Sainte-Genevieve, 83, 
107, 173, 196, 214, 514 
517 
-des-Ardente, 105, 107 
Eglise Saint-Germain-de-Cba- 

ronne, 173, 217, 240, 259 
Eglise Saint-Germain-des-Pres, 
36, 76, 84, 95, 173. 183, 
185, 218, 237, 275, 316, 
325, 326 
dedication, funeral of Cbilde- 
bert, kings of Paris and 
jirinees interred tbere, tbe 
sbrine of Saint-Germain, 
196 
portrait statues of tbe poreb, 
207 
Eglise Saint-Germain-l'Auxer- 
rois, 36, 37, 102, 173, 186, 
217, 249, 378, 400, 510 
rood-loft, 391, 397 
rood-loft — illustrious dead in- 
terred tbere, 234 
Eglise Saint-Germain-le-Vieux, 
95, 96 



INDEX 



565 



Eglise Saint-Gervais, 455, 456, 

468, 491 
Eglise Saint-Gilles, 105 
Eglise Saint-Jean et Saint- 

Frangois, 256 
Eglise Saint-Jean-Baptiste, 95 
Eglise Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, 

73, 100, 217, 239, 241, 

243 
Eglise Saint-Landrv, 102 
Eglise Saint-Leu, 105 
Ei;lise Saint-Louis-des-Inva- 

lides, 532 
Eg!;lise Saint-Maclou, at Rouen, 

381, 386 
Eglise Sainte-Magdelene, 104 
Eglise Sainte-Marine, 102 
Eglise Saint-]\[artial, 96 
Eglise Saint- Martin - des - 

Champs, 217, 240, 260, 

270, 291 
Eglise Saint-Medard, 240 
Eglise Saint-Merri, 240 
Eglise Saint-Michel, 104 
Eglise Saint-Nicolas, 105, 298 
Eglise Saint- Nicolas - des - 

Champs, 240 
Eglise Saint-Nicolas-du-Palais, 

33 
Eglise Saint-Paul, 34 
Eglise Saint-Paul et Saint- 
Louis, 354, 469, 474, 527, 

529 
Eglise Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs, 

102, 248 
Eglise Saint-Pierre-de-Mont- 

martre, 217, 240, 250, 275 
Eglise Saint-Pierre et Saint- 
Paul, 83 
Eglise Saint-Pierre, see Sainte- 

Genevieve, 166 
Eglise Saint-Roch, 527, 531 
Eglise Saint-Severin, 105, 239, 

241, 245, 246 
Eglise Saint-Sulpice, 510 



Eglise Saint-Vincent et Sainte- 
Croix, see Saint-Germain- 
des-Pres, 84, 166 

Eglise Val-de-Grace, 510, 527, 
529, 530, 532, 537 

Elisabeth, d'Autriche, 410 

Elisabeth de France, 462, 463 

Elisabeth, Madame, 48 

Enguerrand de Coucy, 369 

Enguerrand de Marigny, 369 

Espignole, 537 

Essars, Antoine des, 160 

Etampes, comte d', 448 

Etoile, 378 

Eudes Clement, 286 

Eudes, count, 38 

Eudes de Chateaureau, 298 

Eudes, king, 203 

Eugenie, Empress, 419 

Eusabe, bishop of Paris, 194 

Eveche, 90, 91, 106 
Episcopal Palace, 89 
its destruction, 108 

Evelyn, John, 35, 494 

Faubourg Saint-Germain, 467, 

491, 536 
Fayau, deputy, 518 
Ferdinand III, 504 
Ferrand, comte de Flandre, 

308 
Fescli, cardinal, 424 
Filles du Calvaire, 506 
First Empire, 445 
Flandrin, Hippolyte, 215, 219 
Florent d'Argouges, 476 
Fontaine de l'Obser\-atoire, 508, 

531 
Fontaine des Innocents, 392 
Fontaine Medicis. 508 
Fontainebleau, 361, 363, 376, 

430, 438 
school, 432 
Fortunat. 84, 88, 192 
Fosse, Herman de la, 102 



566 



INDEX 



Fouehier, Eobert, 301 
Fouquet, Jean, 363 
Foyatier, 429 

Frar-ois I, 47, 51, 65, 68, 319, 
340, 345, 360, 3G1, 365, 
367, 370, 375, 370, 377, 
378, 385, 386, 397. 409 
410, 431, 437, 452, 461, 
514 
collection, 432 
collection of paintings, 438 
recumbent statue. 343 
tomb, 332, 340, 343 
urn, 335, 345 
Francois II, 350, 402 

marriage to Mary Stuart, 
405 
Francois d'Angouleme, see 

Frangois I, 372 
Francois, prince de Contlo, 191 
Francois d'Orleans-Longucville, 

191 
Fredc'gonde, 49, 277 

tomb, 199, 326 
Fremiet, Emmanuel, 532 
From anger, 119 
Fronde, 480 

Gabriel, 540 

Galba, 61 

Galigjii, Eleanore, 495 

Galles, Bastien, 343 

Gare de Lyon, 73 

Garlande, Etienne do, 86 

Garnier, Charles, 549 

Gaston d'Orleans, 51, 496, 503 

Gaston de France, see Gaston 

d'Orleans, 470 
Gaussel, Jean, 223 
Geoffrey Plantaganet, 111 
Giorgione, 442 

Fete Champetre, 445 

Holy Familif, 445 
Girardon, 213, 537 
Girardon, Frangois, 528 



Girondistes, 48 
Godefroy, 92 
Gondebaud, 79, 80 
Gondi, Jean Francois de, car- 
dinal de Ketz, abbot of 

Saint-Denis, 284 
Gondi, Monseignieur do, 95, 100 
Gondioclie, king of Burgundy, 

79 
Goujon, Jean, 233, 235, 343, 

363, 331, 423, 472, 475, 

476, 479, 482 
sculpture at Carnavalet, 481 
Goustou, Guillaume, Les Che- 

raux de 2Iarhj, 542 
Grand'Chambre of Parliament, 

47 
Grand Cbatelet, 53, 164, 165 
Grand Palais, 549 
Grand Pont, 42 
Gregoire de Tours, 78, 80, 85, 

143, 166, 192, 276 
Greuze, 363 

Guerin, Gilles, 419, 423. 480 
Guilhermv, M. F. de, 108, 117, 

124, 147, 150, 200, 284, 

301, 304, 331 
Guillaume, Eugene, 429 
Guillaume de Melun, 457 
Guise, Due de, 222 
Guise, ducbesse de, 503 
Guise, dues de, 405 
Guv de Flandre, 369 



Halle au Ble, 483 

Halle aux Vins, 107 

Hallos Centrales, 250, 394 

Ilardi, Jean, 455 

Harvourt, General d', monu- 
ment, 153 

Haussmann, Georges Eugene, 
546 

Hauteville, Jean de, 63 

Hebert, 48 



INDEX 



567 



Helgaud, 221 
Heuri I, 87, 261 
Henri II, 37, 177, 270, 280, 350, 
3()5, 309, 370, 378, 381, 
385, 380, 3i)2, 397, 398, 
401, 102, 409, 410, 438, 
401, 475, 482, 483 
bust by Pilon, 391 
monogram, 482 
recumbent statue, 335, 340 
tomb, 335, 340, 345 
wounded by Montgomery, 
402 
Henri III, 34, 350, 410, 471, 

470 
Henri IV, 31, 32, 33, 34, 38, 
191, 214, 318, 322, 350, 
352, 353, 39.7, 400, 420, 
455, 458, 402, 409, 472, 
485, 536 
assassination, 393 
cadaver, 320, 321 
efifigy in wax, 401 
extends the Louvre and Tui- 

leries, 412 
marriage to Marguerite de 

Valois, 399 
statue, 32, 546 
Henri V, comte de Chambord, 

304 
Henri VIII, of England, 371 
Henri de Bourbon, statue by 

Sarazin, 470 
Henri, due de Koban, 338 
Henri of Navarre, see Henri 

IV, 399 
Henriet, Claude, 518 
Henrietta Maria of England, 

409 
Henriette de France, 498 
Henry II, of En^rland, 111 
Henry IV, 237, 254 

of England, 41 
Henry V of England, 401 
Heraclius, 111 



Hilduin, abbot of Saint-Denis, 

252, 274 
Holy Family, 438 
Honorious, 505 

HOpital de la Cbarite, 503, 531 
Hopital des Enfauts Trouves, 

100 
Hotel Barbette, 330, 451, 452 
Hotel Carnavalet, 391, 474, 510, 

519 
Hotel Crillon, 540 
Hotel d'Estomesnil, 448 
Hotel de Beauvais, 408 
Hotel de Boissy, 471 
Hotel de Cluny, 04, 05, 00, 07, 

88, 374, 457, 458, 510, 519, 

520 
Hotel de Mayenne, 472 
Hotel de Sens, 448, 457, 458, 

520 
Hotel de Sully, 472, 474 
Hotel de Vilie, 238, 391, 455, 

480, 481, 549 
Hotel des Invalides, 535, 530 
HOtel-Dieu, 73, 89, 90, 97, 98, 

99, 100, 1()2, 100, 100 
Hotel du Petit Luxembourg, 

495 
Hotel Isabeau, 41 
HAtcl Lambert, 74 
Hotel Lauzun, 74 
Hotel of Cardinal Mazariu, 

408 
Hotel of the cardinal de Bour- 
bon, 409 
Hotel Pute-y-Muce, 448 
Hotel Saint-Pol, 42, 336, 370. 

447, 448, 451, 457, 401 
House of Bourbon, 270, 350, 

485 
House of Orleans, tomb, 335, 

340 
tomb, and Anne de Bretagne, 

339 
tomb of, 452, 453 



568 



INDEX 



House of Valois, 270, 280 
Hugo, Victor, 4(58, 470 
Huguenots, 399, 400 
Hugues IV, 202 
Hugues Capet, 104, 191, 261, 

270 
Hugues of Issy, abbe, 210 

He Saint-Louis, 73, 74 
Hie de la Cite, 29, 31, 33, 38, 
73, 76, 164, 240, 250, 378, 
482 
Institut de France, 32, 510, 
532 
dome, 529 
Invalides, 322, 510 
dome, 529 
Hotel des, 536, 550 
Isabeau de Baviere, 336, 451, 

452 
Isabelle de Hainaut, 111 
Isle aux Treilles, 33 
Isle de Bussy, 34 
Isle des Juifs, 33 
Isle du Passeur aux Vaebes, 34 



Jean Goujon, 177 
Jean le Bon, 222, 447, 453, 457 
Jean II, due d'Alengon, 309 
Jean IV, due de Bretagne, 309 
Jeanne d'Arc, 457, 458 
Jeanne d'Evreux, 213 
Jeanne de Bourbon, statue, 453 
Jeban de Chelles, 112 
Jesus and Sainte-Anne, 437 
Joconde (by Leonardo da 

Vinci), 432 
Joinville, Jean Sir de, 36 
Joinville, prince de, 538 
Jordaens, Jacques, 499 
Jouffroy, 429 
Jouvenet, 537 
Julian tbe Apostate, 36, 54, 57, 

58, 67, 87 
Juliani, Guillaume, 308 
Julius Cassar, 53 
Juste, Antoine, 340 
Juste, Jean, 340 
Juste, Jean and Antoine, 341 

Kernevenoy, Frangois de, 475 



Jabaeb, of Cologne, collection, 

441 
Jacquerie, 222 
Jacques d'Amboise, 520 

abbot of Cluny, 64 
Jaley, 429 

James V of Scotland, 65 
Jandun, Jean de, 303 
Jardin des Plantes, 322 
Jardin du Luxembourg, 59, 61 
Javogues, 320 
Jean de Bourbon, 520 

abbot of Cluny, 64 

tomb, 453 
Jean de Conflans, 447 
Jean de Grailly, 309 
Jean de Paris, archdeacon of 
Soissons, 113 



La Belle Ferronniere, 437 

Labrouste, 184 

Lafayette, equestrian statue, 

545 
La Fontaine, 393 
La Fosse, Charles de, 537 
La Grange, Jacqueline de, 124 
Lamartine, 254, 319, 321 
La Rochefoucauld, cardinal de, 

182. 184 
Lassus, 301, 313 
Last Supper (by Leonardo da 

Vinci ) , 432 
Lauzun, de, 503 
Lavasseur, Nicolas, 519 
Lebeuf, abbe, 85, 101, 140, 221, 

258 
Lebrun, 528 



INDEX 



569 



Lebrun, Charles, 23G, 410, 420, 

441, 446, 528 
Leduc, Gabriel, 530 
Lemercier, Jacques, 381, 420, 

423, 527, 530 
Lemont, Frangois-Frederie, 54G 
Lemuet, Pierre, 530 
Lenoir, Albert, 255 
Leonir, Alexandre, 181, 204, 

213, 287, 31G, 322, 324, 

331, 345, 386, 431, 445, 

528 
Lenotre, 412, 508, 539 
Leon de Lustigan, tomb, 454 
Leonardo da Vinci, 375, 432, 

442 
Lepreuce, Enguerrand, 518 
Lecjuino, 317 
Lescot, Pierre, 233, 361, 381, 

429, 475, 476, 482 
Le Tellier, cardinal, 184 
Levieil, Pierre, 150 
Life of Saint-Bruno, by Le- 

sueur, 506 
Ligneris, Jacques de, 475 
Lintlaer, 35 

Lion of the Palais, 481 
Longueville obelisk, 338 
Lorenzo de Medicis, 401, 438 
Lorraine, Madame de, 407 

princes, 405 
Louis VI, 279 
Louis VI le Gros, 41, 253, 279, 

297, 368, 394 
Louis VII, 105, 146 
Louis VII le Jeune, 41, 75, 87, 

278 279 
Louis XI, 98, 364, 370, 455, 

461 
Louis IX (Saint-Louis), 107 
Louis XI, oratory, 310 
Louis XII, 41, 47, 48, 335, 338, 

339, 340, 360, 365, 370, 

371, 372, 374, 461 
death, 374 



Louis XII, marries Marie d'An- 
gletorre, 374 
recumbent statue, 345 
tomb, 332, 339, 340, 342 
Louis XIII, 32, 33, 47, 51, 65, 
106, 130, 154, 301, 319, 
321, 351, 401, 406, 420, 
463, 469, 470, 471, 480, 
494, 515, 529, 531 
equestrian statue, 464 
heart, 354, 470 
statue, 471 

statue in Notre-Dame, 155, 
159 
Louis XIV, 47, 124, 152, 154, 
191, 215, 227, 254, 283, 
321, 351, 353, 37(), 401, 
412, 423, 431, 442, 467, 
469, 471, 504, 528, 529, 
530, 535, 539, 540 
collection of paintings, 441 
heart, 354, 470 
statue by Antoine Coyzevox, 

400 
statue by Girardon, 545 
Louis XV, 38, 47, 109, 178, 
283, 321, 351, 352, 393, 
424, 455, 506, 539, 540, 
541 
Louis XVI, 353, 424, 542 
Louis XVIII, 66, 269, 313, 325, 

352, 504, 532, 546 
Louis, eomte d'Artois, recum- 
bent statue, 331 
Louis de Flandre, 369 
Louis, due d'Orleans, 336, 337, 
451, 452 
recumbent statue, 340 
Louis le Jeune, 111 
Louis-Philippe, 287, 288, 301, 

313, 353, 539, 546 
Louise de la Favette, 471 
Louise de Savoie, 370, 371, 372, 

410 
Louise de Vaudemont, 34, 410 



570 



INDEX 



Louvre, 58, 68, 313, 361, 370, 
430 
aneiennes Salles du Musee 

des Souverain, 416 
and Tuileries, bound to- 
gether, 415 
Chateau du, 38 
facade Frangois I, 362, 420, 

423 
facade Henri IV, 415, 423 
Galerie d'ApolIon, 416, 426 
Musee du, 177, 179, 209, 215, 

324 
Musil du, 204 
of Viseonti and Lefuel, 426 
Palais du, 31, 34, 35, 42, 218, 
222, 223, 234, 238, 336, 
367, 369, 376, 377, 447, 
479, 510 
Palais, fagade Frangois I, 

378 
Porte Jean Goujon, 415 
Salle des Cariatides, 309, 

385, 398, 401 
Salle Rubens, 429 
sculptors of, 429 
the court completed, 420 
vieux, 366, 367, 368, 370, 
381 
Lutece, see Lutetia, 76, 164 
Lutetia, 53, 54, 57, 91, 164 
Luxembourg, Frangois de, due 

de Piney, 491 
Luxembourg, Jardin du, 505 
Luxembourg Palace, 420, 510 
Palais du, 60, 361, 429, 485 
Lyon, 57 
Lycee Henri IV, 169, 183 



Mabillon, Jean, 214 
Madame de Montespan, 191 
Madame Roland, 48 
Madame Roland's House, 32 
Madeleine, 510, 540 



Mademoiselle, daughter of Gas- 
ton d'Orleans, 503 
Maillard, Mademoiselle, 159 
Maintenon, Madame de, 283 

540 
Malesherbes, 48 
Malherbe, 35, 503 
Mama3a, 61 

Mansart, Jules-Hardouin, 537 
Mansart, Frangois, 471, 476 

530, 536 
Marais, 34, 256, 336, 354, 370, 

447, 474, 527, 529 
Marcel, Etienne, 222, 447 
MarcLe aux Innocents, 394 
Marguerite d'Artois, recumbent 

statue, 331, 332 
Marguerite de Valois, 322, 399, 
406, 410, 412, 437, 458, 
491, 515 
portraits, 515 
Marguerite de Provence, por- 
trait statue at Notrc- 
Dame, 148 
tomb, 322 
Marguerite Louise d'Orleans, 

254 
Marie-Antoinette, 48, 49, 321, 

353, 541 
Marie d'Angleterre, 65, 371 
Marie-Therese d'Autriche, 124 
Marie de Beauvilliers, 254 
Marie de Medicis, 174, 346, 347, 
350, 351, 353, 362, 412, 
420, 423, 476, 485, 515, 
528 
Marie Therese, 469 
Marochetti, 230 
Marseilles, 57 
Marsv, 215 
Martin, 503 
Martin, Henri, 362, 378 
Mary Stuart, 405 
Masle, Henri de, 41 



INDEX 



571 



Mathieu de Vendome, 286 
Maugiron, de, 34 
Mauleon, Thomas de, 210 
Maurice de Sullv, 75, 87, 91, 

94, 99, llO/lll, 139, 146 
Mazarin, cardinal, 419, 441, 

529, 532 
collection, 445 
tomb, 532 
Mercier, Antonin, 429 
Mercier, Francois, 236 
Merovee, 77, 193 
Merovingien Dynasty, 38, 66, 

76, 77, 78, 80, 82, 104, 143, 

456 
Messaline, 49 
Metezeau, Louis, 412 
Metezeau, Tbibaut, 405 
Micbu, 518 
Mignard, fresco at Val-le- 

Graee, 530 
Millet, Aime, 429 
Ministre de la Marine, 540 
Moliere, 401 
Monsieur, see Louis XVTII, 

504 
Montaigu, Jean de, 123 
Montereau, Pierre de, 209, 210, 

266, 292, 298, 299, 301, 

304, 311 
Montfaucon, Bernard de, 143, 

182, 202, 214 
Montgomery, Earl of, 37, 462 
Montmartre, 70, 252, 274 
Montmorency, abbess, 48 
Montmorency, Madame de, 254 
Morard, abbe, 200, 203 
Morant, 322 
More, Ludoyie le, 437 
Moret, abbe Gerard de, 210 
Mounier, Jean, 519 
Musee Carnavalet, 35, 58, 474 
Musee de Cluny, 58, 67, 144, 

151, 206, 210, 338, 507 
Musee des Archives, 256 



Musee des Petits-Augustius, 
119, 182, 213, 214, 270, 
287, 316, 322, 324, 432 

Musee du Louyre, 376, 386, 391, 
397, 431, 506 

Musee Napoleon, 445 

Nancy, de, 407 
Nantilde, tomb, 329 
Napoleon Bonaparte, 322, 352, 
353, 376, 424, 431, 504, 
505, 532, 539, 540, 542, 
545, 546 
commands completion of the 

Louyre, 425 
married to Josephine, 424 
statue by Chaudet, 546 
statue by Seurre, 546 
tomb, 535, 537 
Napoleon III, 218, 353, 539, 
546 
completes the Louyre, 426 
Naumaehie, La, 283 
Neufville, Nicolas de, 370 
Ney, marechal, statue, 532 
Nimes, 57 

Noailles, cardinal de, 160 
Noailles, marechal de, 48 
Norman Inyasions, 38, 86, 200, 

203, 211, 221, 246 
Notre-Dame, 29, 30, 59, 89, 90, 
98, 99, 101, 104, 107, 192, 
227, 241, 245, 259, 275, 
279, 284, 289, 301, 308, 
368, 400, 510 
composed of two churches, 

85 
et seq., 69, 110 
interior, et seq., 149 
le portail, 117 
painters of the cboir, 156 
sculpture of tlie choir, 155 
the bells, 123 
the choir, 471 
the choir-screen, 161 



572 



INDEX 



Notre-Dame, the eboir, trans- 
formation, 154 

the doors, et seq., 127 

the glass, 290 

the treasure, 153 
Nova Eeclesia, 87 

Observatoire, 505, 50C, 507 
Obstal, Gerard Von, 479 
Odeon, 507 

Odette de Champdivers, 451 
Opera, 549 

Oratory Saint-Andreol, see 
Saint-Andre-des-Arts, 186 
Orleanistes, 48 

Pagerie, Josephine de la, 504 

Pajou, 392 

Palais, 33, 36, 37, 38, 41, 42, 

49, 50, 54, 58, 63, 94, 96, 

104, 210, 240, 297, 298, 

312, 448 
Palais Bourbon, 540 
Palais de Justice, 31, 42, 87, 

291, 482 
Palais des Thermes, 38, 54, 58, 

59, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 83, 

164, 166, 494, 520 
Palais des Tournelles, 37, 42, 

370, 377, 401, 451, 457, 

461, 462, 472, 485 
Palais du Senat, 505 
Palais, Gallo-Roman remains, 

44 
Palais Royal, 467, 495, 527, 

529 
Palaiseau, 189 
Palma Vecchio, 442 
Pantheon, 61, 166, IvIO, 174, 

178, 507, 508, 510, 513 
Pare Mareeau, 549 
Pare Monceau, 280 
Paris, legend of, 52 
Parisii, 53 



ParUament, 33, 42, 48, 92, 47 
Pascal, 517 

Pepin, 140, 144, 278, 279, 319 
gift to Saint-Germain-des- 

Pres, 189 
Percier and Fontaine, 425 
Peres Chartreux, 506 
Periez, Frangois, 519 
Perraud, 429 
Perrault, Claude, 423 
Perret, Ambroise, 343 
Petit Chatelet, 164, 165 
Petit Palais, 305, 549 
Petit Pont, 57, 76, 91, 92, 96, 

98, 100, 164, 189 
Pharamond, geneologv, 52 
Philip II of Spain, 462 
Philippe I, 183, 261 
Philippe IV of Spain, 504 
Philippe Auguste, 41, 42, 63. 

96, 104, 105, 107, 111, 112, 

139, 146, 223, 295, 367, 

378, 394 
wall of, 24 
Philippe d'Orleans, 280 
recumbent statue, 339 
Philippe de Chabot, 338 
Philippe de Champaigne, 503 
Philippe de France, 529 
Philippe de Villette, abbot of 

Saint-Denis, 94 
Philippe Egalite, see Philippe 

d'Orleans, 283 
Philippe le Bel, 41, 44, 308, 452 

equestrian statue, 160 
Philippe le Hardi, 280, 286 
Philippeaux, 505 
Pierre d'Orgemont, 461 
Pierre de Chains, abbot of 

Cluny, 63 
Pierre de Nemours, 112 
Pierre de Pille de Villemur, 222 
Pierre le Venerable, abbot of 

Clunv, 253 
Pigallc: 540 



INDEX 



573 



Pif?alle, J. B., 153 

Piganiol de la Force, 2G2 

Pi Ion, Germain, 177, 257, 313, 

335, 338, 343, 345, 34G, 

362, 363, 470 
Madonna, 470 

sculpture at Carnavalet, 481 
Pinaif^rier, 518 

Piombi, Sebastiano del, Visita- 
tion, 438 
Pitti, Palace, 412, 491 
Place Dauphine, 31, 32, 464 
Place de Greve, 455, 518 
Place de I'Ecole, 221, 222 
Place de I'Hotel de Ville, 455 
Place de la Bastille, 471 
Place de la Concorde, 378, 412, 

510, 539, 540 
Place des Victoires, 535 
Place des Vosges, 37, 462,-467, 

472, 510 
Place du Carrousel, 378, 535 
Place du Cbatelct, 250 
Place du Pantheon, 184 
Place du Parvis, 71, 88, 89, 00, 

101, 106 
Place du Petit Pont, 165 
Place Louis XV, see Place de 

la Concorde, 540 
Place Maubert, 166, 169 
Place R ovale, see Place des 

Vosges, 462 
Place Saint-Germain-des-Pres, 

208 
Place Saint-Michel, 71 
Place Vauban, 536 
Place Vendome, 159, 535, 545, 

546 
Poirier, dom, 212, 318, 319, 321 
Poissant, 423 

Pompadour, Madame de, 393 
Ponce, Paul, 454, 479 
Pont-Alexandre HI, 549 
Pont au Change, 57 
Pont au Double, 169 



Pont aux Oiseaux, see Grand 

Pont, 42 
Pont de la Cite, 71 
Pont des Arts, 31 
Pont des Pleurs, see Pont-Neuf, 

34 
Pont du Carrousel, 29, 415 
Pont-Neuf, 29, 32, 33, 34, 03, 

103, 412, 540 
Pont Royal, 411 
Pont Sully, 73 
Pope Alexander HI, 75, 111 
Pope Alexander VI, 371 
Pope Clement VII, 100 
Pope Eugenius III, 253 
Pope Grogoire XV, 106 
Pope Innocent II, 102 
Pope Pius VII, 424 
Pope Urbain VIII, 515 
Porte Saint-Antoine, 391, 447 
Porte Saint-Denis, 535 
Porte Saint-Marlin, 535 
Porte Saint-Pol, 448 
Porte Rouge (Notre-Dame) , 00 
Prat, Antoine de, 100 
Pre'aux Clercs, 186, 190 
Prefecture de Police, 42, 96, 

105 
Prieur, Barthelemv, 363, 382, 

405 
Primaticeio, 363, 365, 375, 376, 

385, 432 
Priory of Saint-Eloy, 94, 95 
Priory of Saint-Mart in-des- 

Champs, the Refectory, 

266 
Provence, eomte de, see Louis 

XVIII, 504 
Prudent ins. Bishop of Paris, 

76, 84 

Quai d'Anjou, 74 
Quai d'Orleans, 74 
Quai de Bethune. 74 
Quai de Bourbon, 74 



574 



INDEX 



Quai de FHorloge, 36, 43 
Quid de Montbello, 72 
Quai des Grands-Augustins, 34 
Quai des Tuileries, 415, 426 
Quai du Louvre, 415 
Quai du Marebe-Neuf , 96 
Quartier Saint-Jacques, 61 
Queen Margot, see Marguerite 

de Valois, 514 
Quelus, 34, 471 

Rachel, 468 

Racine, 517 

Raoul d'Octouville, 337 

Raphael, 442 

Belle Jardiniere, 438 
Portrait of Count Balthazar 

Castiglione, 445 
Saint George with the Drag- 
on, 445 
Saint Michael with the Drag- 
on, 445 
Ravaillne, 38, 393, 455, 469 
Ra\'y, J eh an, 162 
Reign of Terror, 49, 254, 316, 

431, 504 
Remi, bishop of Rheims, 82 
Rene d'Orleans, 338 
Revolution, 49, 181, 243, 261, 
458 
at Anet, 386 
at Carnavalet, 484 
at Chanibord, 366 
at Eglise Saint-Paiil et Saint- 
Louis, 470 
at Hotel de Clunv, 65 
at Montmartre, 254, 257 
at Musee du Louvre, 431 
at Notre-Darae, 114, 118, 121, 

153, 159 
at Place de la Concorde, 541 
at Place des Vosges, 464 
at Pont-Neuf, 35 
at Saint-Denis. 269, 283, 287, 
314, 344, 352 



Revolution at Saint-Germain- 
des-Pres, 200, 201, 206, 
214 
at St. Martin-des-Chanips, 

260 
at Sainte-Chapelle, 301, 304, 

308, 312 
at Sainte-Genevieve, 184, 517 
at S(]uare des Innocents, 394 
at the Luxembourg, 504 
at the Palais, 48 
lie de la Cite, 95, 102, 103, 

104, 105, 106, 108 
statue of Louis XIV, 481 
cardinal, monument, 323, 528 
Renaud de Corbeil, 113 
Richelieu, 531 

Richelieu, cardinal, 263, 381, 
420, 464, 468, 4(i9, 471, 
479, 495, 496, 527, 528 
Robert, conite d'Artois, 297, 

305, 306 
Robert de Clermont, 447 
Robert de la Ferte-Milon, 174 
Robert of Auxerre, 75 
Robert II, le Pieux, 98, 203, 

221, 505 
Robespierre, 48, 505 
Ronsard, La Franciade, 53 
Rosso, 363, 375 
Boi-soJeil, see Louis XIV, 535 
Route d'Orleans, 91, 164 
Rubens, decorations for Palais 

du Luxembourg, 493, 496 
Rubens, Peter Paul, 496 

decorations for Luxembourg 
Pnlace, 349 
Rude, Franqois, 429, 532, 542 
Rue aux Feves, 94 
Rue Bonaparte. 208, 211 
Rue Cardinal, 212 
Rue Castiglione, 545 
Rue Clotilde, 169 
Rue (;iovis. 169. 178, 183 
Rue Colombier, 208 



INDEX 



575 



Eue Culture Sainte-Catherine, 

484 
Rue de Beam, 4t>2 
Rue de Betizy, 222 
Rue de Bretague, 462 
Rue de -Harlay, 33 
Rue de I'Abbave, 209, 210, 211 
Rue de I'Eebaude, 208 
Rue de I'Hotel de Ville, 45(5 
Rue de la Barillerie, 94, 104 
Rue de la Calande, 94 
Rae de la Cite, 96 
Rue de la Feronnerie, 393 
Rue de la Monnaie, 36 
Rue de la Montague Sainte- 

Genevieve, 169, 513 
Rue de la Pelleterie, 104 
Rue de la Procession, 253 
Rue de la Vieille Draperie, 94 
Rue de Lutece, 42, 94, 96 
Rue de Medieis, 508 
Rue de Rennes, 208, 211, 549 
Rue de' Rivoli, 423, 469, 545, 

549 
Rue de Sevigne, 474, 481 
Rue de Sommerard, 520 
Rue de Tournon, 485 
Rue de Turbigo, 549 
Rue de Vaugirard, 492, 506 
Rue des Fosses Saint-Germain, 

222 
Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, 451, 

452, 455, 474, 482 
Rue des Halles, 250 
Rue des Martyrs, 251 
Rue des Tournelles, 462 
Rue des Tuileries, 411 
Rue du Bac, 411 
Rue du Cbat-qui-Pecbe, 246 
Rue du Chevet, 102 
Rue du Cloltre Notre-Danie, 90 
Rue du Figuier, 457 
Rue du Pare Royal, 462 
Rue FranQois Miron, 468, 409 
Rue Furstemberg, 210 



Rue Galande, 71, 241 

Rue Jacob, 208 

Rue Lafayette, 549 

Rue Lagrange, 169 

Rue Mouge, 61 

Rue Mont-Cenis, 253 

Rue Neuve Notre-Danie, 107 

Rue Pierre Lescot, 394 

Rue Royale, 540, 541 

Rue Rustique, 253 

Rue Saint-Antoine, 463, 469, 

472 
Rue Saint-Benoit, 208 
Rue Saint-Denis, 253, 255, 392 
Rue Saint-Eleutbere, 252, 255 
Rue Saint-Jacques, 57, 91, 530 
Rue Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, 72, 

245 
Rue Saint-Martin. 240, 2{)2 
Rue Saint-Pierre-aux-Bo'ufs, 

102 
Rue Saint-Severin, 71, 246, 

247 
Rue Saint-Victor, 62 
Rue Sainte-Marguerite, 208 
Rue Saintonge, 462 
Rue Sevigne, 484 
Rne Soufflot, 61, 507 
Rue Val-le-Grace, 531 
Rue Vertbois, 262 
Rue Vieille du Temi)le, 451 
Rue Zacherie, 246 
Rully, Philip]:)e de, tomb, 302 



Saere Cceur, 251, 510 

Saint Bartholomew, Masi'acre, 

37, 222, 236, 400, 406 
Saint-Bernard, abbot of Clair- 

vaux, 253 
Saint-Christopbe, 96 

statue, 160 
Saint-Cloud, 172, 335, 424 
Saint-Denis, magasin, 119, 132, 

210 



576 



INDEX 



Saint-Denis, martvr, 103, 172, 
251, 273, 275," 276 
martyr, the pagan legend, 

275 
statue by Sarazin, 256, 355, 

356 
statue in Notre-Dame, 152 
Saint-Eloy, 94, 277 
Saint-Eleuthere, 273 

martyr, 252 
Saint-Francis of Assisi, statue, 

224, 257 
Saint-Frangois Xavier, statue, 

213 
Saint-Germain-des-Pres Abba- 
tial Palace, 211 
Virgin's Chapel, 209, 210, 
211, 266, 298 
Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, the 
rood-loft, 233 
of Auxerre, 173, 218, 259 
of Paris, 96, 173, 186, 194, 

203, 218 
the Bourg, 185, 189 
the faubourg, 191 
interment, 189 
Saint-Jean-Baptiste, La Vierge 

aux Bochers, 432, 437 
Saint-Julien, le Pauvre, 242 
martyr, 242 
the ferryman, 242 
Saint-Just", 48 
Saint-Landry, 96, 101 
Saint-Louis," 41, 42, 47, 51, 96, 
111, 113, 210, 240, 266, 
280, 286, 292, 295, 296, 
298, 304, 305, 307, 308, 
311, 336, 354, 369, 398, 
506, 526 
Saint-Louis (Louis IX), 36 
oratory, 310 

portrait statue at Notre- 
Dame, 147 
skull, 308, 309 



Saint-Martial, bishop of Li- 
moges, 94 
Saint-Maur, abbots of, 448 
Saint-Michael and the Dragon 

(large), 438 
Saint Peter's dome, 529 
Saint-Rustique, martyr, 252, 

273 
Saint-Severin, 102 
Sainte-Aure, 94 
Sainte-Chapelle, 30, 38, 47, 51, 
104, 128, 154, 209, 210, 
214, 240, 241, 266, 291, 
336, 510 
the glass, 288, 296, 305 
the treasure, 308 
the relics, 295, 297, 307, 308 
Sainte-Genevieve, 169, 172, 173, 
218, 259, 276 
Mont, 54, 61, 485, 525 
shrine, 174, 516, 518 
statue, 180 
Sainte-Marie-l'Egyptienne, 225 

statue, 224 
Sainte-Marine, 102, 103 
Salcede, Nicolas de, 455 
Salle d'Egabte, 48 
Samaritaine, La, 35 
Saragossa, Siege of, 192 
Sarazin, Jacques, 256, 423, 470 
Sarto, Andrea del, 432 

Charite, 437 
Sauval, 90, 494 
Schut, C, 499 
Second Empire, 426 
Seurre, Gabriel-Bernard, 546 
Sevigne, Madame de, 468, 474, 

483 
Sibour, Monseignieur statue, 

153 
Simart, 429 
Simon, abbe, 209 
Sire de Barbazan, recumbent 
statue, 322 



INDEX 



577 



Sommerard, du, 65, 66 
Sorboiine, 54, 323, 507, 510, 

520, 526, 532 
dome, 529 
Sorbonne, Robert de, 526 
Soufflot, Jacques-Germain, 131, 

147 
Soulavie, 394 

Square des Innocents, 394 
Steinheil, 268 
Suger, abbe, 86, 146, 150, 263, 

279, 284, 286, 288, 289, 

322. 325 
Sully, 463, 472, 515 
Syagrius, 78 
Sylvestre, Louis, 268 

Talleyrand, 424 
Temjile of Cliarenton, 491 
Temple of Isis, 195, 275 
Temple of Reason, 159, 283 
Temple Sainte-Marie, 470 
Temple to Bacchus, 275, 276 
Temple to Jupiter, 58, 59, 275 
Temple to Mercury, 275 
Teniers of England, collection, 

442 
Tbibaut, Jean, 213 
Thierry, 80, 83, 84 
Tiiree Graces, bv Germain 

Pilon, 338 
Thou, de, Jacques-Auguste, 400 
Tiberius Cassar Augustus, 59 
Titian, 442 

Entombment, 445 
Jnpiter and Antiope, 445 
Laura de Dianti, 445 
portrait of Francois T, 438 
Titus, bust, 308 
Tour Ronbec, 38 
Tour d'Argeut, spe Tour de 

Montgomery, 37 
Tour de Cesar, spp Tour de 

Montgomery, 3S 
Tour de I'Horloge. 37, 44 



Tour de Montgomery, 37, 38 
Tour Eiffel, 69 
Tour Montgomery, 49 
Tour of Philippe'Auguste, 366, 
368, 378 
its guests, 368 
Tour Saint-Jacques, 37 
Tour Saint-Louis, see Tour 

Bonbec, 38 
Tour Sainte-Genevieve, 169, 

184 
Toussaint, 131 
Tribunal of Commerce, 104 
Tristan de Salazar, 458 
Tristan I'Hermite, well, 525 
Trocadero, 549 

Tuileries, 343, 361, 370, 371, 
378, 405, 410, 411, 424, 
430, 431, 467, 485 
Jardin des, 508 
Palais, 317 
Palais du, 35, 223 
Turenne, 319, 321 

University of Paris, 507 

Val-de-Grace, Hopital de, 240 
Valentine de Milan, recumbent 

statue, 339 
Valois, House of, 38, 42 
Vancleve, 159 
Van Dvck, 436, 442 
Van Egmont, 499 
Van Thulden, 499 
Vaucanson, Jacques de, 261 
Vendome, 322 
Vendome, Renaud de. 98 
Ventadour, Madame de, 47 
Verneuil, Henri de, 191 
Veronese, Paolo, 442 

Marriage of Cava, 44-6 
Versailles, 324, 424. 431, 441, 

541 
Vevin, comte du, 191 
Victoire de France, 353 



578 



INDEX 



Victor Hugo, 112 
Vinci, see Leonardo, 432 
Viollet-le-Duc, U, 117, 118, 

124, 127. 131, 132, 267, 

292, 313. 325, 329 
Virgin, statue by Pilon, 313 
statue, from Saint-Martin- 

des-Cbamps, 331 
with Infant, 437 
Visconti and Lefuel, 426 



Visconti, Jeune, 538 
Voltaire, 504 
Volusian, 61 
Vos. Simon de, 499 

Wall of Philippe Auguste, 64, 

72, 368, 485 
Walls of Charles V, 369, 485, 

535 
Watteau, 363 



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